Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen [Paperback]

Charles Higson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1997

A man kills a prospective buyer for his car. On the verge of becoming a name in the interior design world, he can't afford a scandal and must discreetly dispose of the body—not an easy job when the whole of London seems to be conspiring against him.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A sizzlingly paced modern thriller with outbursts of thumpingly sick black humour... It is fast. It is cruel. It is comical. It is vastly entertaining, and not a little disturbing.' NME 'A funny, frightening book, full of powerful, open-hearted material and with a strong line in suspense.' TLS 'This is a black farce with bells on, or Martin Amis as slapstick... very funny and utterly unstoppable.' THE TIMES 'A tour-de-force... captures right-wing arrogance magnificently.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 'A fast-moving, rip-roaring riot of a read.' CRIME TIME 'Fast and funny (as you'd expect) and devastatingly cruel.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'An energetic comedy of disasters with plenty of jokes for boys about curries and condoms and, for the girls, a scarily accurate description of a forceps delivery.' INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE 'Of all the young, trendy writers of comedy thrillers, this author is my favourite. In his fast-paced tales ordinary situations run out of control and escalate into violence; the novels are compulsive, dark and sick. I love them.' THE BOOKSELLER '... he is gratuituously offensive about women, the unemployed, lefty social-worker types and anyone over 40. Remember, the best humour is never PC.' COSMOPOLITAN 'An entertaining and deeply disturbing read.' THE CRIMINOLOGIST 'A coke-fuelled, black humoured masterpiece.' MUZIK 'Given that few comic novels make you laugh at all, one that makes you laugh out loud before you got beyod the first paragraph is to be treasured. And you needn't worry that Higson has used his best gag at the start: the laughs keep coming right through the narrator's 24 hour descent into hell.' TIME OUT 'Higson has the kind of ear for middle-England angst that more established writers should be jealous of.' GQ

About the Author

Charlie Higson is a professional comic and the author of Happy Now and the Young Bond series.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 219 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group (December 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0349108153
• ISBN-13: 978-0349108155
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,412,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charlie Higson is an acclaimed comedy writer, producer, actor, and genuine James Bond aficionado. He is the author of the adult thrillers, Full Whack and King of the Ants; the internationally best-selling Young Bond series: SilverFin, Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold, and By Royal Command; and the YA apocalyptic thriller: The Enemy, which he wrote to frighten his ten-year-old son. He lives in London. Follow him on Twitter at: twitter.com/monstroso

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh, I nearly died., September 5, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen (Paperback)

Quite simply one of the funniest books I have ever read. My sides were splitting by the end of the first page and it got funnier from there on in. Fast paced story with lot's of interesting and believable characters. If only all books were this good.

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Higson, August 30, 2006

By 

Pitoucat (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen (Paperback)

This was the fourth novel from Charles Higson, who has since found fame as writer, producer and performer on the BBC-TV comedy series THE FAST SHOW. His previous novels had set a high standard in their mixture of comedy and thrills, and the new one is no exception, although it does take off at an even more extreme tangent than its predecessors.

The unnamed hero wakes up in a bad mood, not helped by the weather forecaster getting it totally wrong once again, and so, when Mister Kitchen calls around to inspect the car he has for sale, he ends up killing him. As you do. No problem; he simply has to dispose of the body before it's discovered, and then everything will be OK again. He has a good plan, because he's done this kind of thing before, but this is just not his day, and the elements all conspire to defeat his attempts. As he battles against unsurmountable odds he merely digs himself deeper and deeper into the mire, and even consumption of the complete pharmacopoeia of drugs does not seem to help.

Higson has produced a minor classic whose scenes of drug induced frenzy stand comparison with Hunter S Thompson's FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. It's also a very funny book, in the black comedy sense, although with some thought-provoking comments on ecology, evolution, religion, and the British class system. A fast-moving rip-roaring riot of a read.

5.0 out of 5 stars A true favourite!, April 1, 2005

By 

Happy reader "Happy reader" (Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen (Paperback)

When I first got this book, I wasn't familiar with the writings of Charles Higson. I was hit by his humour, the pace, and the twists and turns of this hilarious story. I didn't put the book down when I first opened it - I simply had to read it all. It was back in 1997, and since then I've read the book two more times. Even if I know what's to come I enjoy the dialogue and the bizarre scenes. So funny. Since then I've read other books by Charles Higson, but this stays my absolute favourite.