Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
This book brings together three novellas written by Mike Hodges, the director of cult British crime films Pulp and Get Carter. The result is two qualified successes and one good idea that doesn't quite work out.
Bait, the longest and best of the three, sees sleazy PR executive Mark Miles mixed up with a hard-boiled private eye who wants to use him to trap the leader of a possibly murderous self-improvement course. It works as a sort of Will Self meets Derek Raymond in a crumbling British seaside resort mash up, with Hodges showing that he has an eye for the grotesque along with a dark sense of humour
In Grist a group of misfits take revenge on Maxwell Grist, a reclusive New York crime novelist who stole their lives as material from his books. Hodges neatly subverts the cool guy tropes of the 'caper' movie to good effect, again there is plenty of dark humour that pushes the boundaries of good taste.
Security, is the weakest of the three, told mostly in dialogue this story about the chaos that endures when a film star refuses to leave his hotel suite reads like a treatment for a film that was never made. Although the idea behind it is interesting; Security doesn't really work and might have been better re-written as a short story.
This is an interesting debut as a writer of fiction from one of the most accomplished British film-makers of the past half century. Although there are some things that could, and surely will be improved in his next collection, there is enough promise on show here to suggest that this late career change of direction could bring Hodges a new audience.
