Mik lives in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, but travels the length and breadth of the UK as a Project Manager. He's a long-time crime fiction fan, with bookshelves groaning under the weight of signed copies from some of the greats of the genre. He's also a reviewer, and an aspiring crime writer, with hopes of joining his literary heroes on a shelf near you in the not too distant future.
David Gordon’s extraordinary The Bouncer launches you straight into the story and then flies from one action scene, to the next, at break-neck speed but holds your attention like the teeth of a vice.
Joe Brody is the Bouncer of a strip bar owned by an old friend who also happens to be a mob boss. It soon becomes apparent that Joe is not your standard meat-head Bouncer, instead he reads Dostoevsky, is ex-military and was expelled from Harvard. Joe is the kind of guy who takes each day as it comes, and isn’t against making the odd illegal dollar, until he sets in motion a series of events that send him into a weird adventure that traverses perfume heists, to gun-deals.
The plot sometimes moves almost too fast for the reader to keep up. There are gangsters, robberies, terrorism and the usual murderers crammed deftly into 224 pages.; making it read almost like a film script as opposed to a novel.
There is a vast array of colourful characters, but again due to the sheer speed of the story - they aren’t fully developed, and often just complicate the plot.
The ending leaves the door open for a sequel, and one that would be recommended reading (for the crime-fiction reader), just like its precursor, the one named after its eponymous character Joe Brody’s profession.
