From Publishers Weekly
Rawhead, the lethal antihero of this gruesome underworld thriller, is both a "fast, businesslike and thoroughly unpleasant" practitioner of "violence as God intended" and a demonic "elemental power" like a volcano, a lightning bolt and a "biblical plague." Part smoothly efficient hit man, part Frankenstein monster, part Heathcliff, Rawhead adds a note of maniacal mayhem ("[he] saw a man capering around in circles, blood fountaining from his cranium") while exerting a grim magnetism over "the Spirit of Darkness," an equally lethal lady assassin (and "ancient, bloodthirsty goddess" in her own right) hired by mob bosses to kill him. Bowker (
The Death You Deserve) transplants the basics of L.A. noir—complete with satirical subplot about a desperate writer corrupted by hack television producers—to the usual squalor and debauchery of gangland Manchester, England, and adds a shot of rancid Victorian romance, culminating in a romantic tryst in a gloomy vicarage, "consummated... on a bed of human carrion." He highlights his punchy, deadpan prose with streaks of purple ("[b]efore you knew it, you were bleeding. Then you were pleading. Then you were dead") while keeping up a parade of piquant scumbags and well-paced, cringe-inducing violence. If the varying tones of gritty crime procedural, black comedy and gothic grand guignol sometimes clash, readers (those with strong stomachs, anyway) will be having too much fun to care.
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From the Inside Flap
Praise for The Death You Deserve:
"For readers who like their mobsters with a side order of smart satire writing--and who doesn't?--Bowker is a welcome addition to the U.S. scene."
- Publishers Weekly
"As it happens I knew these streets for nearly twenty years, and this tough, fabulous, smart-mouth novel captures them perfectly. The Sopranos meets The Jackal in a part of England Agatha Christie knew absolutely nothing about. This is hard, funny, and scary--try it."
- Lee Child, The New York Times bestselling author of Without Fail and Running Blind
"Alternatively quirky and grisly, Bowker's first crackles with energy and surpising warmth."
- Kirkus Reviews
"A perfectly paced rollercoaster ride. If you care about world peace, don't read this book."
- City Life
"Grotesque, original, and murderously funny, it conforms to no existing crime template. . . Bowker tells his bloody tale with wit, invention, and raw energy that boils off the page."
- Literary Review
"A novel that is wickedly funny. In fact, I'm putting [The Death You Deserve] aside for a few weeks and then plan to read it again before passing it around to some of my most deserving friends."
- Punch
