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Perras Malas
Loaded guns, lesbian love, inverted expectations, and lecherous mafia-types make this a novella not to forget.
Kika was a map of bruises. She was a cicatrix of vengeance, the scar of a wounded mind, the fetid and gangrenous lesion of a town's malevolent psyche. And she's come back to Carbon, Georgia, to find her missing sister.
Fighting tooth and nail, wielding her trusty crowbar, Hell hath no fury like the violent storm Kika brings to Carbon. She'll tear through the town and its criminal underworld until she finds her sister.
Inspired by Virginie Despentes' Baise Moi, The Shit of God by Diamanda Galas, and Cynthia Pelayo's Into the Fire and All the Way Through, this is the story of violence inflicted on women, and the cold vengeance served to those responsible. Informed also by female revenge films such as Coffy, Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion, I Spit on Your Grave, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Perras Malas delivers several acts of vengeance to the evil men of Carbon.
cover design by Neda Aria
Kika was a map of bruises. She was a cicatrix of vengeance, the scar of a wounded mind, the fetid and gangrenous lesion of a town's malevolent psyche. And she's come back to Carbon, Georgia, to find her missing sister.
Fighting tooth and nail, wielding her trusty crowbar, Hell hath no fury like the violent storm Kika brings to Carbon. She'll tear through the town and its criminal underworld until she finds her sister.
Inspired by Virginie Despentes' Baise Moi, The Shit of God by Diamanda Galas, and Cynthia Pelayo's Into the Fire and All the Way Through, this is the story of violence inflicted on women, and the cold vengeance served to those responsible. Informed also by female revenge films such as Coffy, Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion, I Spit on Your Grave, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Perras Malas delivers several acts of vengeance to the evil men of Carbon.
cover design by Neda Aria
178 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2022
About the author
Manny Torres
6 books34 followersOriginally from Brooklyn, NY, Manny Torres resides in Atlanta, Georgia. He is also a photographer and painter. In addition to writing Dead Dogs, he's written articles for My Darling Atlanta, and written and directed several documentaries and music videos, including "Change Your Mind" by Sara Rachelle, The Trespasser, Unendangered Species, and The Abby Go Go Christmas Special. For 15 years he was a music programmer and co-conspirator on Step Outside: The Strange and Beautiful Music program on WMNF 88.5FM in Florida. He's worked as a photographer, graphic designer, sold insurance, written training manuals for a large corporation, and managed a touring rock band. He occasionally curates film and art shows around Atlanta. He is currently editing a series of crime novels, as well as a supernatural western.
Dead Dogs is his debut novel, part of the Dog Trilogy. The novella Father Was a Rat King and the novel Perras Malas were released in 2022. The final book in the trilogy, Cabrones Perros, was released in 2023.
Dead Dogs is his debut novel, part of the Dog Trilogy. The novella Father Was a Rat King and the novel Perras Malas were released in 2022. The final book in the trilogy, Cabrones Perros, was released in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 5, 2022
In Dead Dogs, Manny Torres told the story of two lovable street thugs at the bottom of the gangster food chain whose jobs included disposing of dead bodies by tossing them into garbage dumpsters.
Perras Malas is Dead Dogs on steroids with machetes.
The city of Carbon is figuratively and literally a giant garbage dump, and the town's underworld syndicate earns money by burying bodies in its massive landfill. When a crime boss abuses a young woman named Mari in her sleep, Mari shoots him in the face, killing him. The crime boss's associates find his body and conclude that another criminal organization has launched a war against them (because none of the gangsters can conceive of the idea that a mere woman could have got the jump on the mob boss). Mari is joined by the crazed and vicious Kika, another young woman bent on retribution against, well, practically everything, but especially men. The two go on a spree of destruction, and, Yojimbo style, every act of violence fuels the growing gang war they themselves have created.
That's the basic plot, but this book is so much more than plot. Using a non-linear narrative, Torres tells a tale of unrestrained vengeance by women against some pretty evil men. Torres doesn't hold back on the violence, nor does he glorify it. People get shot while urinating in alleys. They get hacked up with machetes while lying in piles of garbage. Blood drops don't spray through the air in slow motion, glittering poetically in the sunlight. No, victims die in pain and agony, and the perpetrators get sick and vomit. None of the imagery in this book is pretty; it is consistently ugly, like this scene early in the book where Mari is observing some of Kika's handiwork on a still-living victim:
"She tried not to look at the ratatouille of his face or lumpy brain mass exposed through a hole in his scalp. No teeth. Bottom of his mouth torn and dangling. Fingers missing. Legs broken and twisted unnaturally. Stray dogs would finish him off."
Or this scene of a man trudging his way through a section of the town's massive garbage dump filled with old buried bodies:
"The ground was too soft to hold him, and he tumbled into an old excavation. A plump, bluish hand flopped sideways out of the ground, maggot-gnawed and rotting. Lying in the shallow grave, he punched the hand until it interred. The more he struggled, the more he sank into the hugging arms of the corpse."
This is a book that forces its readers to take a hard look at the ugliness of the world and acknowledge its existence, like tipping over a stone to observe the cannibalistic maggots underneath. It's a book about women being pushed over the edge of sanity by men and getting even. It's about people who have had enough and won't sit back and take anymore. It's about the challenge of reading a book while feeling as if you are being sliced up with a chainsaw.
Not for everyone, but the writing is surgical, the pacing is breakneck, the characters are unique and unforgettable, and the adrenaline rush is genuine. I was drained when I was done with the story, and yet, somehow, and I don't want to give anything away here, I felt oddly exhilarated, too. Like I wanted to pass out fist-bumps. Very strange.
Perras Malas is Dead Dogs on steroids with machetes.
The city of Carbon is figuratively and literally a giant garbage dump, and the town's underworld syndicate earns money by burying bodies in its massive landfill. When a crime boss abuses a young woman named Mari in her sleep, Mari shoots him in the face, killing him. The crime boss's associates find his body and conclude that another criminal organization has launched a war against them (because none of the gangsters can conceive of the idea that a mere woman could have got the jump on the mob boss). Mari is joined by the crazed and vicious Kika, another young woman bent on retribution against, well, practically everything, but especially men. The two go on a spree of destruction, and, Yojimbo style, every act of violence fuels the growing gang war they themselves have created.
That's the basic plot, but this book is so much more than plot. Using a non-linear narrative, Torres tells a tale of unrestrained vengeance by women against some pretty evil men. Torres doesn't hold back on the violence, nor does he glorify it. People get shot while urinating in alleys. They get hacked up with machetes while lying in piles of garbage. Blood drops don't spray through the air in slow motion, glittering poetically in the sunlight. No, victims die in pain and agony, and the perpetrators get sick and vomit. None of the imagery in this book is pretty; it is consistently ugly, like this scene early in the book where Mari is observing some of Kika's handiwork on a still-living victim:
"She tried not to look at the ratatouille of his face or lumpy brain mass exposed through a hole in his scalp. No teeth. Bottom of his mouth torn and dangling. Fingers missing. Legs broken and twisted unnaturally. Stray dogs would finish him off."
Or this scene of a man trudging his way through a section of the town's massive garbage dump filled with old buried bodies:
"The ground was too soft to hold him, and he tumbled into an old excavation. A plump, bluish hand flopped sideways out of the ground, maggot-gnawed and rotting. Lying in the shallow grave, he punched the hand until it interred. The more he struggled, the more he sank into the hugging arms of the corpse."
This is a book that forces its readers to take a hard look at the ugliness of the world and acknowledge its existence, like tipping over a stone to observe the cannibalistic maggots underneath. It's a book about women being pushed over the edge of sanity by men and getting even. It's about people who have had enough and won't sit back and take anymore. It's about the challenge of reading a book while feeling as if you are being sliced up with a chainsaw.
Not for everyone, but the writing is surgical, the pacing is breakneck, the characters are unique and unforgettable, and the adrenaline rush is genuine. I was drained when I was done with the story, and yet, somehow, and I don't want to give anything away here, I felt oddly exhilarated, too. Like I wanted to pass out fist-bumps. Very strange.
January 5, 2023
Like a bullet to the face, a sucker punch to the cerebral cortex, a cheap shot to the groin, this hard-boiled novel takes no prisoners and leaves nothing to the imagination. Great characters, compelling interconnected stories... This is Transgressive (noir?) fiction at its finest. Highly recommend this book.
June 8, 2023
These Perras are, indeed, Malas AF. Then again so is every other character in this highly entertaining crime and mayhem yarn. You start off with the setting, a town that's identified mainly as a gigantic garbage dump where the local crime outfit's main source of income is burying bodies for other crime outfits. Every character is wonderfully (terribly?) worthy of this setting. Great characters, gritty dialogue, stylized, over-the-top violence (and lots of it!). What's not to like. If you like to explore the various uses of a crowbar, you might want to check this one out.
September 25, 2022
Started on Monday July 4th finished on Thursday July 7th
Received this e-book from outcast press
What a way to celebrate the holiday
Like it says on the back; soaked in the dna of this is the classic female revenge tale. Giving a particularly brutal nod to those of the French extremity movement
Very cinematic images with the pace and flow of a great film
This is fucking gnarly. There is dirt under the fingernails.
Very detailed descriptions of graphic violence
Direct and precise chapters spanning from a couple of pages to a couple sentences making it relentlessly consumable.
Huge cast of characters and the pleasure of seeing how all of their paths will collide
No sanitization for horrendous characters presented in all their ugliness and extreme visceral dialogue.
A certain naughty pleasure in seeing these characters squirm in paranoia as the bodies start to pile up
Themes of presumptuous men underestimating the capabilities of scorned women are played structurally with a dramatic irony through non linear storytelling.
Filled with brutal one-liners that sell the genre and create that inexplicable punk ‘fuck yeah’ soaring in your chest
Received this e-book from outcast press
What a way to celebrate the holiday
Like it says on the back; soaked in the dna of this is the classic female revenge tale. Giving a particularly brutal nod to those of the French extremity movement
Very cinematic images with the pace and flow of a great film
This is fucking gnarly. There is dirt under the fingernails.
Very detailed descriptions of graphic violence
Direct and precise chapters spanning from a couple of pages to a couple sentences making it relentlessly consumable.
Huge cast of characters and the pleasure of seeing how all of their paths will collide
No sanitization for horrendous characters presented in all their ugliness and extreme visceral dialogue.
A certain naughty pleasure in seeing these characters squirm in paranoia as the bodies start to pile up
Themes of presumptuous men underestimating the capabilities of scorned women are played structurally with a dramatic irony through non linear storytelling.
Filled with brutal one-liners that sell the genre and create that inexplicable punk ‘fuck yeah’ soaring in your chest
January 3, 2024
Very slow and repetitive in the beginning.. picked up a bit after halfway through the book. Not the writing style for me but was enjoyable in the end.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews