Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, Twisted, Funny and Very Good, March 17, 2009
Manny Rupert is a P.I. with a drug problem. He's got a money problem too, he'd got none and he's about to lose his home. Then he's accosted by a man in a walker who turns out be a wacked out crazy millionaire named Harry Zell. Zell believes the Angel of Death, you know the guy they made the BOYS FROM BRAZIL movie about, isn't dead. He believe Josef Mengele is alive and maybe not so well, but still breathing at a ripe old age of Ninety-seven in San Quentin.
Zell want's Harry to go undercover as a drug counselor and head up a prisoner recover group, sort of like the blind leading the blind, but Harry's got no choice, he's broke and Zell's offering him ten grand in addition to clearing up his mortgage problem.
So why does Zell want to know if Mengele is alive? What's he planning? Is Mengele Alive? If so, what's he doing in San Quention? Then there's the problem of Manny's ex-wife, she'd killed her first husband by lacing his Lucky Charms with the glass from broken light bulbs and drano, what's she doing having conjugal visits with one of the inmates? And who knew Jews could join the Aryan Brotherhood? And who knew someone could write a mystery that was so dark and twisted and funny and oh so good that you'd hang on every word.
|
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, sick, yet funny in a demented way, April 19, 2009
I'm re-writing because I've decided that my first review wasn't exactly clear:
This is probably not a book that I would have selected on my own - having hated the movie "Permanent Midnight." In the end it was an enjoyable read - if not a bit preposterous.
The Good Guy - Manny Rupert: an Ex-cop, on again off again junkie with a bad liver, who married a woman he met after she killed her husband and he responded to the police call. He's down on his luck, and not doing himself much good - then a strange old Jewish man shows up in his house, beats him with a walker and hires him to go undercover in San Quentin
The Good Girl - Manny's ex-wife, soon to be ex-ex-wife he hopes, is a neurotic bulimic on again off again junkie/prostitute/opportunist. Her morality is questionable but somewhere under all that sex and junk - there's a heart of gold (at least we're told)
The Bad Guys - Oh there are so many of them, but to keep from giving too much away I'll only list our target, the 90 year old blond German man in San Quentin who swears that he's Dr. Joseph Mengele (Nazi Death Camp Doctor at Auschwitz).
So, crazy Jewish man with walker hires Rupert to go undercover as a drug councilor at San Quentin to determine if the crazy old German actually IS Mengele. Things go bad quickly as Rupert's ex-wife shows up with an Aryan Brotherhood leader who also happens to be Jewish. The people on Rupert's side might actually be more dangerous then the convicts.
The writing is verbally simplistic, a lot of people rant and rave about how grotesque this is - but as a horror fan, I've got to say - it's not that bad. Most of the disgusting parts are simply people recounting what Mengele had done - which IS gross, but it's not extremely explicit in that respect. There is a lot of sex, drugs, racial slurs, anti-government garbage, and a whole lot of the German guy arguing about the good he did in the death camps - like slaughtering babies to cure cancer... that part gets old fast.
To be honest, this isn't the best or worse book I've read. The characters are all fairly despicable in one way or another and the plot only holds together loosely. At times you will find yourself shaking your head trying to figure out just how you're supposed to buy all of what's being sold to you here. If you are looking for something comparable - try Tim Dorsey- ADHD writing, spastic plot, and a lot of material to make your average reader cringe.
Rated R - Do not hand to the kiddies.
|
|
|
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Dark/Twisted/Laugh ot LOUD/Carnival Fun-Prison-House Ride, April 19, 2009
Reading the jacket:..."new king of black humor"(The Los Angelos Times) caught me tickle bone right quick/ spice it up with the quip from Anthony Bourdain,"Jerry Stahl should either get the pulitzer Prize or be shot down in the street like a dog" and presto: done deal/I'am in for the ride.
I intially worried that this may be too crazy or off the map.
All you got to know is that the author's style is pulpy, fast, absurd and furious, with a dark twisted accelerated wit that presumes an intellect keeping pace, turning on a dime, while intermittently laughing out loud.
Manny Rupert is an ex cop/ Jewish P.I/ addicted beyond redemption and married to Tina, a hell-cat femme fatale to die for. He is dead broke and loosing his home. Enter Harry Zell with a ten grand opportunity: just go undercover into prison as a San Quentin drug counselor to smoke out the possible bonafide Nazi Dr. of Death, Joseph Mengele.
The author dices it up with Reality TV, Nazi Science, Christain Porn, Human/Animal guinea pigs, Big Pharma and historical tid bits that blow your shocks off.
There is a serious current moving below the laughter that addresses the "Holocaust" issue in todays context.
Namely,
Is it behind us?
Fun, entertaining, and yes, at the very end,
deadly serious.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
