Nicholas Blincoe - Jello Salad Serpent's Tail £7.99
Set in the seediest parts of Soho, Jello Salad is an explosive journey into a violent, uncompromising world of drugs, gangsters and dis-functional characters, Susan Ball is setting up a new restaurant in Soho using the money that she stole from her corrupt husband Frank 'Ballistic' Ball and it is only a matter of time until he tracks her down. At the same time, he needs to find Callum his son who has disappeared with vast quantities of cocaine.
Hogie is a cook from Manchester who is hanging on to a .job in a prime slot TV show by just managing to stay clear-headed enough to present it. He has a predilection for older woman, a knack of acquiring them easily and a fiercely expensive drug habit. Cheb is an odd character who is also drug dependent whilst dabbling in all sorts of weird concepts and religions. Naz is a cool, indifferent Pakistani who fears no-one and uses people unscrupulously to further his drug empire.
Basically, there are no ordinary characters although Susan comes the closest. The story is one of murders, dealing and unhappy ends for a variety of people but what sets it apart from most other novels of this type is the graphic though not gratuitous violence. Things happen to characters which most people couldn't imagine in even their most lurid moments and I certainly won't be able to look at an electric cooker in the same light again for a while.
The violent scenes are told in a detached and factual way with the emphasis, being more on the events themselves rather than the effect on each character. There is a definite Quentin Tarantino mood about this book and it's eminently readable but certainly to be avoided by the squeamish, Although the characters are unlike anyone most of us have ever met before, there is a believability about them which enhances the credibility of what could otherwise have been a far-fetched tale.
(Linda Ross)
