( Format : Audiobook )
"Teardrops in an ocean."
This book was not what I had expected. It left the desire for a really not shower and scrubbing brush to cleanse the unpleasantness from my head. It is hard to find any character - and their are many - with even small redeeming features. Miserable, arrogent, vicious, self pitying, abusive, quick to anger and violence, an overall curmudgeon with a chip the size of an oak tree on his shoulder - and that is just the lead "good" guy. Everyone is despicable from the police officers through the Samaritan, the drugs dealers, ex-SAS msn, solicitors, bar tending gangsters, pedophiles ... Each is beyond any form of empathy or acceptability. The dreary and fearful tale of murder, kidnapping and sexual and physical abuse just swirls through the entire story, a real big slice of underworld scum.
Narrator Colin Farrell actually performs well but even be cannot let in any light. The actual recording sound quality was poor and Mr.Farrell's reading felt depressive, a tad contemptuous in it's delivery, which fitted the overall tone of the book but did little to make it an easier read. He does well with clearly differentiating the numerous voices of each individual character and his accents are fine, also - one of three arrogant, wealthy organisers sounding remarkably like Winston Churchill. His reading is clear , well articulated and modulated, but the words do not always flow seemlessly, instead sounding almost as if read for the first time, and, just occasionally, a strange word is inserted which seems incorrect, or out of place, such as "pillows of society" instead of "pillars of society". Hard to know if this was a simple, uncorrected mistake of a deliberate device by the author.
I did not enjoy this book. London is not the total throwaway sleeze hole depicted. It might be bad in places but there are always some redeeming places or people. Usually I enjoy the vicarious thrill of books about crime, murder mysteries, thrillers and so on, but this one just wasn't for me. My thanks, however, to the rights holder of SAS Bodycount, who, at my request, freely gifted me with a complimentary copy via Audiobook Boom.