Down on Ponce by
Fred Willard
Published by No Exit Press
(No Exit Press)
DOWN ON PONCE was shortlisted for the 1998 John Creasey Memorial Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association. The author begins by assuring us that it is a work of fiction. Let us hope he is right.
The story’s narrator is a retired hippy drug baron. He and his friends tangle with rather more ruthless contemporary drug barons. Before they have finished, there is an awful lot of blood on the carpet. One of our narrator’s friends drives a hearse. Another is an enormous poet with only half a face. The third has had both legs amputated at mid-thigh and acts as the poet’s mouthpiece. And another is Bug Raiford “whose problem with authority had gotten out of hand when he tooted too many lines of crank and became convinced that his brain was haunted by the ghost of Sid Vicious”. As for “Ponce” that comes from Ponce de Leon Avenue, a haven for the homeless, the lawless and the restless in Atlanta Georgia where some of the action takes place.
Seriously weird and seriously funny, the book defies summary. The only thing to do is to read it and enjoy it.
(
Andrew Taylor
- - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series)
Down on Ponce by
Fred Willard