Customer Reviews

Living Room of the Dead (Ray Sharp Novels)

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This book was a great read. Within a few pages, protagonist Ray Sharp feels like a real person. The descriptions of HongKong and Macau never strain for effect, yet they are incredibly vivid (and accurate, based on my modest HK experience). The plot avoids the tired "then things became implausibly dangerous but the narrator miraculously prevailed in the end" cliche that infests many thrillers. It is terribly gruesome in spots, but if you read through to the author's note at the very end, the sickening parts seem well justified. While this is definitely a "man's book" - the point of view is decisively male and our hero never once bemoans his weight or gets nagged by his mother - it is accessible to a female readership as well; in fact, Ray directly addresses a few issues in a way that seems designed to interest female readers. Finally, the world as narrated by Ray is ideal for a series. The infrequent use of details about Ray's background as fuel for the book's development seems a promising method for avoiding the excessive review that can plague series books. It will be a pleasure to see what Ray encounters in future novels.

This is the first in a series of (4 currently) Ray Sharp Novels by Eric Stone. The Author weaves fact and I surmise personal experiences, in a riveting tale that takes you through Macau in the mid-90's, as well as, the formerly closed Russian City of Vladivostok. As an avid reader and collection fiction set in Asian locales, I had not to date read anything that provides such vivid color on the underbelly of Macau and more specifically the topics of sex for sale and human trafficking for sexual exploitation. Personally, a winning formula in any form of media blends both excitement and repulsion. The "Living Room of the Dead" offers both of the aforementioned in ample quantities. My only regret is that it took me so long to find the series and I look forward to reading the rest.

Eric Stone's first novel reveals the underbelly of Macau, Hong Kong, and other colorful cities as backdrop to an original suspense story: protagonist Ray Sharp tries to rescue a Russian prostitute from a deadly crime syndicate. The novel's strength is its vividly depicted settings. Even well-traveled readers will be enlightened, often surprised, and sometimes shocked as they follow Stone on a tour of some of the most exotic places on Earth.

This novel takes off as fast as the hydrofoil that Ray Sharp boards from Hong Kong to Macau. There is no pretense here. Just old school hard core crime school noir. This pulp novel has taken me on a walking tour of the 4 century old colony of Macau. I am greatly enjoying vicariously the shaded cobbled streets, vivid harbor panoramas, and decaying colonial structures. I feel like I am right there in the espresso cafes and sandwich shops with the strong jawed, fair skinned, bright-eyed Portagees; and the table of tittering Chinese massage girls trying hard to solicit me for a rub and tug. So far this is a very cool underground travel guide in pursuit of booze, gambling, and hookers. Well things start to unravel as Ray gets between a deadly Russian pimp named "The Roman" and an English kid lovestruck with a Russian whore. Ray is up to his eyeballs and balls to the wall with Russian hookers. He is playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with whores and pimps. I think the point is that even though Ray's world is filtered through a vodka haze; and that his main hobby is fornicating with various prostitutes the author would like the reader to believe that the protagonist possesses the moral fabric to know right from wrong and good from evil. So Ray Sharp expounds on his philosophy. Once upon a time he was a radical leftie. He believed the commies had a nobler raison de'tre than the bloated capitalist plutocrats feeding like maggots off the carcass of the American worker. But then disillusion set in. He witnessed the party bosses using the "isms" as just another modus operandi to obtain gilt lined pockets. So now after dragging Sasha the whore into deep water he is left with the remnant of a moral kernel of guilt that he is responsible for her fall. The book descends like DANTES INFERNO through ever more degrading levels of whorehouse purgatory. Like Don Quijote, Ray personally visits as many of these foul brothels as possible in a quest to redeem Sasha the whore. He is like Homer in the Oddyssey; except his quest is brothel puss. The reader gets vicarious peeks at the seemiest brothels in Macau; and, a thrilling tour of Zhuhai in The New Territory where Ray gets to impersonate a low-rent James Bond. Did I mention that Ray gets to share a convivial dog dinner? ES seems "intimately" acquainted with ALL these bordellos. I only hope he wore a full body condom while he "conducted his research". This book goes beyond sex and sojourns into the relationship between sex and violence. There is a bordello isolated on a pastoral island in Chinese waters named Black Island. The specialty is sadism with a capital S. You will need a strong stomach for this. That's the point. Women go in but they don't come out. Ray sees why. This is uncomfortable reading. But that is precisely the point. Guys, when you go for that tug and rub; the point is those whores are also women known as daughter, mother, sister and wife. A lot are forced and tricked into the oldest profession. Profits flow to Mafia, Yakuza, Triad, and Silky the pimp. A lot of the women ride the H train-- either forcibly or by choice. ES wants you to think about the underbelly of sex slavery. ES is not just tittilating your prurient sensibilities with salacious prose. ES is old school didactic. Sex slavery is morally bankrupt. Remember the little bergs named Sodom and Gommorrah ? The last leg of this whorehouse odyssey boogies by jet plane back to the USSR. Vladivostock is the last stop for Ray Sharp. Until recently this port was a closed military city. Ray gets to indulge in local drinking games names "salt fish". He gets to meet the local mafia godfather in pursuit of Ed and Marta, the Romeo and Juliet of the book. Storm, the evil handmaiden of The Roman re-appears. She is like the twisted, sadistic sister of Dolph Lundgren; she makes things "sizzle". You won't feel good after reading this whorehouse travelogue. But, it is a worthy read giving vicarious peeks at exotic locales for intrepid arm chair travelers.