Customer Reviews

London Boulevard

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
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Minutes before Mitchell is to be freed after spending three years in prison for an assault he did not remember committing due to a drunken haze, the warden tells the fortyish convict he will be back. Mitchell hides the terminator retort and steps outside knowing he looks like a shifty felon. Working for loan shark Tommy Logan, Billy Norton arrives to pick him up, but Mitchell wonders if this acquaintance can be considered a friend though he is there to take him home.

Logan has plans for Mitchell, but the ex con does not have a compulsive need for quick money and is obsessed with not being a recidivism statistic. Mitchell obtains a handyman position at the Holland Park estate of aging movie actress, Lillian Palmer. As he struggles with adjusting to her odd butler Jordan, those close to him begin to die from an unknown adversary who soon threatens his beloved but insane sister Briony and others like Aisling and even a dog. Mitchell's obsession about staying out of jail has turned compulsive but no one hurts Briony.

With plenty of dark humor throughout, Ken Bruen pays violent homage to Sunset Boulevard with this fast-paced Noir. Each of the key cast members contains differing personalities, but the story line belongs to the anti-hero who just wants to go straight yet finds himself swimming in a foggy sea of sordid sleaze as those good citizens are as nasty as the those he met behind bars and rival those muscles working for Logan. With more blood spilled than a downtown Emergency Room like Atlanta's Grady, fans who don't mind hearing the breaking of bones will want to read Mr. Bruen's gloomy view of London.

Harriet Klausner

Now wait a minute. This plot sounds familar.
A young, handsome man connects with a reclusive actress, whose only employee is a butler. He moves into the garage apartment of her large mansion and enjoys her other gifts and favors. He drives her to a major movie studio in a large and expensive car after the studio calls repeatedly not to schedule a comeback but to rent the car!
It's co-writer and director Billy Wilder's 1950 black and white film, "Sunset Boulevard."

No, it's LONDON BOULEVARD, the 200l novel by Ken Bruen, the fantastic Hiburnian noir writer.

As the dust jacket declares, Mitchell, Bruen's protagonist, has just been released from prison (three years for aggravated assault) and doesn't want to return to a life of crime. He finds employment as a handyman for stage actress, Lillian Palmer, whose sole other employee is an aging and devoted butler.

The dialogue is witty; the prose is sparse and succinct. Bruen uses a quirky three-line device to catch the reader's attention. Usually the lines are three adjectives but can be titles of books on a shelf or items on a cafe menu.

And the book is funny. Mitchell's sister Briony is slightly mad, a confirmed shoplifter, and forgets her husband is dead. She arrives at Mitch's Welcome Home party "looking like a radiant bag lady" and apologizes for Frank's absence. The lunch at Browns at Convent Gardens with the mob boss is funny, too. Mr. Gant wants Mitch to help him organize his debt collections and to steal Lillian's Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce. The funeral of Joe, Mitch's favorite newspaper seller, is out of control. Mitch throws a copy of "Big Issue" on the lowering coffin and Briony invites a street musician dressed in kilts to play the bagpipes.

Does Colin Ferrill (Mitchell) end up dead in the swimming pool as William Holden (Joe Gillis) does? Well, you'll have to read the book. But I can tell you if he's dead, the butler probably did it!

Noir? See Comment

This is a well-written little novel about a thoroughly amoral ex-con who falls into various lucrative situations requiring only his virility and an ability and readiness to injure and kill. The characters are all stereotypes of no great depth or originality, and the book depends on fast action to keep the reader engaged. The major question for readers familiar with Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," after which the story is patterned, may be who will get killed in the last act.

It is a long way from the sun-baked streets of Los Angeles to the damp and foggy streets of London. But in this American reprint of Ken Bruen's 2001 work, the author successfully bridges the gap by reworking the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's classic noir tale of desperation and death.

For the book to live up to the Billy Wilder film noir is a very tall order indeed, but Bruen, the prolific writer from Galway, Ireland, has earned his place at the top of the list of a new generation of writers, including Megan Abbott, Jason Starr and Charles Ardai, all of whom have revitalized noir fiction and dragged it --- often bleeding --- into the new century. And that has meant great reading for the rest of us.

Whether set in Ireland in the Jack Taylor series or in London with the Inspector Brant series, Bruen often pays homage in his books to the American masters of the genre, such as Charles Willeford, Ed McBain and Lawrence Block. So it is no surprise that he follows closely the Wilder tale in LONDON BOULEVARD --- even down to the creepy butler. But instead of a chimp being buried in the backyard, it will be far worse.

Mitchell gets out of jail after serving three years for a violent assault he has no memory of, although it is not hard to see how he might have done the crime. On the ride home from prison, he gets out of the car and busts the arm of a squeegee man. But he has a job waiting and is given a great apartment thanks to his best friend. For this, he is expected to do muscle work for a loan shark. Then there is his old crew of bank robbers who want to bring him back for one more job.

Bruen puts us right from the start in the world of noir: "I had dark eyes, and not just on the outside," Mitchell says early on. But he wants nothing to do with his former life of crime and, on a recommendation, visits the mansion of a once famous London theater star in need of a handyman. He takes the legit job and soon is involved with the old actress.

What follows are double and triple crosses that keep the pages quickly turning. And Bruen's take on the ending is --- if such a thing is possible --- even darker than Sunset Boulevard. As in the movie, Mitchell meets a girl he immediately falls in love with and wants to protect her from his dark world. Bruen writes, "She was attractive no doubt, but I (Mitchell) hesitated. She said, `There is a lovely word in Irish, it's bronach...means sadness but a lot more. Anyway, that is how you looked.'"

And Mitchell is in a world of sadness. It's interesting that the character of the writer in Wilder's classic should be transformed into a small-time criminal in Bruen's update. But I don't think Bruen is trying to insult those of us who try to scribble for a living, nor is he making a larger, perhaps well-deserved point about the publishing business. He is quite right and unique, however, in linking noir to the Irish concept of sadness. Noir might have been born in sunny America, but its roots are as deep as all human suffering and failure. Bruen writes, "What you regard as a small isolated incident sets off a chain of events you could never have anticipated. You believe you're making choices and all you are doing is slotting in the pieces of the foreordained conclusion."

This deep, melancholic passage serves two purposes: it exemplifies the dark nature of the book, and it highlights how great of a writer Bruen is. His fantastic work is slated to become a movie starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. While it might not end up being another Sunset Boulevard on the big screen, Farrell might be an inspired choice to play Mitchell in LONDON BOULEVARD. Read the book before you see the movie.

--- Reviewed by Tom Callahan

I finally got around to "discovering" Irish crime writer Ken Bruen. I'm one of those slow learners, and - yes - I occasionally frustrate my wife because I don't like to take advice. I prefer to learn things primarily on my own. My life is harder that way, but it's also more interesting on the whole.

This book caught my attention because it's now a movie starring Colin Farrell, an actor I like to watch when he's got a good part that suits him. I think the role of Mitchell (the main character in London Boulevard) is going to fit him like a hand in a glove.

Mitchell is a man of violence, an habitual criminal, who has a code of ethics and loyalty that gets him in trouble and makes him all the more interesting. The book opens up like so many crime novels have, with Mitchell just getting out of prison and moving straight back in with the old crowd.

But Bruen immediately twists things up by shoving Mitchell into a make-it or break-it situation that he likes and distrusts at the same time. Add to that Mitchell's semi-deranged sister, Briony, and this potboiler starts to simmer in the first chapter.

Bruen isn't content at that either. He throws in an old, reclusive actress that punches Mitchell's buttons in all the wrong ways, has a mysterious butler with a sordid and intriguing past, and a secret that landed Mitchell in prison that is ready to explode.

The first-person narrative style is really lean, stripped down to bone and sinew, and the rocketing pace of the plot makes the book run like it's in warp drive. Bruen gets directly to the heart of every scene and pounds it like a blacksmith working metal on an anvil.

I couldn't stop turning pages on this one, following every kink and surprise and low blow like a hound on a fox. Even as skilled and experienced as I am in the wiles of authors and twisty books, Bruen had me jumping at shadows and still being surprised at the characters and the situations.

Colin Farrell and the movie guys have got their work cut out for them. I'm afraid this is gonna be one of those times that the book is much, MUCH better than the movie. Bruen has a magic and mastery with words that just don't translate to the big screen.

This is an excellent novel by a terrific, and funny, writer. Being a fan of Ken Bruen's "Jack Taylor Series" of books, I was not sure he could entertain me with LONDON BOULEVARD as well as he had with the others. I'm am happy to say, I was thoroughly entertained and didn't want the book to end, or at least to be a little longer.

The previous reviewers have written about the characters and plot so I won't repeat what has already been said. What interested me about this book were all the little references to food. I guess Bruen wanted to show that Mitchell, the protagonist, was so happy to be out of prison and away from the horribly bland food there that he mentions everything he eats, or rather, savors. Here's an example:

"Her name was Aisling and once I loosened up, we got on great. I couldn't believe it, I was having me a time. We got out of there (a pub called Finches where he first meets Aisling) and I had a taxi take us to a club where they play cajun and serve barbequed ribs to die for. Big buckets of 'em and pitchers of beer. There's no way you can eat them delicately. You get in there, get good and greasy.

She did.

God bless her.

There's a tiny dance floor and she dragged me on out. The band had a demonic fiddler and we were possessed. Covered in sweat, we retreated to our table and consumed a pitcher, ate more ribs and were in hog heaven.

She grabbed my hand, said, 'Kiss me.'

I did and the menu was complete."

See what I mean? Steamy food and the promise of steamier...well, you get the drift. With writing like this, you just have to wish you could find a place just like that. I recommend LONDON BOULEVARD highly. (5 Big Juicy Stars)

Noir master Ken Bruen does his own strange take on Sunset Boulevard--distinctly European yeat holding tight to the soul of the homage. If you haven't read him, not at all a bad place to start.

Ken Bruen has written numerous hard core noir novels full of sparkling prose and humor, but none have been as offbeat as London Boulevard. It is based on the old movie, Sunset Boulevard, the story of an aging actress and a young screenwriter. Substitute for Desmond a just-released-from-prison Mitchell and a bunch of gangsters and you have the makings of a very different story, full of sex and action.

When he's released, Mitchell is surrounded by his past criminal associates, who attempt to enlist him in their pursuits. To escape them (and the possibility of eventually ending up back to the joint) Mitchell takes a day job as a handyman at the estate of Lillian Palmer, an attractive but has-been actress. Of course, they quickly have a torrid affair. Soon, the butler and Mitchell join forces to thwart threats to Mitchell and his sister, as well as the actress' security.

It's all good fun, macabre, and full of violence and witty dialogue. The author attempts to give Mitchell, who really is little more than a thug, some style by having him quote various books he supposedly read and citing their authors, and by making reference to numerous songs and the artists who performed them. Is it likely a gangster and murderer really is conversant with Pelecanos, Elroy, Leonard, Willeford, Sallis, Harvey, et al? Oh well, it was fun to read anyway, and is recommended.

Mitchell has just spent three years in the slammer for a crime he claims he was not guilty for. Now that Mitchell has been released for good behavior, he plans to make the most of his second chance by turning his life around. Unfortunately, trying to better yourself is hard to do when your only ride are people from your past. Good buddy, Billy Norton is happy to see Mitchell. There is one problem...Billy works for a notorious loan shark by the name of Tommy Logan. Tommy wants Mitchell to work for him. That is the last thing Mitchell wants.

Luckily, Mitchell ends up landing a job as a handy man for one time famous actress, Lillian Palmer. From the first moment Mitchell lays eyes on Lillian, he is memorized by her beauty. Lillian is a recluse. She hides out a lot in her bedroom. Though, Mitchell works for Lillian, it is really Jordan, who calls the shots.

I really liked Mitchell. He was a bit of a softie but don't tell him that. When it came to his sister, he is the perfect brother. When it came to Mitchell and Jordan squaring off, I thought they were evenly matched. I do have to give it up to Jordan for the spooky factor. He is one of those silent types, who you need to watch your back around or else. This book read fast. There were a few twists and a few slow points. Overall, a good read.

It's fun and all that but this is a novel with lines he's used before and a plot stolen. Not as clever as he thinks. Still Bruen is always entertaining. I just hope he didn't write this for the movies but I think he did.