Customer Reviews

Pyschosomatic

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This one screams MOVIE! Preferably by David Lynch. I read this baby cover to cover; there was no putting it down. James Ellroy brutality, Elmore Leonard dialogue, Victor Gischler humor ... that's a trifecta with an undeniable payoff. Anthony Neil Smith stomps onto the scene in this volcano of a debut. You'll have to trust me, I'm no misogynist and this one turned me on from the get-go ... pure dynamite. Not only was she and the plot believable (you just have to know people other than those living in fairytales), this baby lent a new lilt to what I sometimes think about late at night. One of my "best of" reads for the year.

This is one of those great little crime/pulp books that mix a lot of absurdity and humor with blasts of extreme violence and very disturbing events. The characters are perfectly executed (in a couple cases quite literally) and that makes the reading all the more fun. The final act stretched things just a liiiittle too far for me, but that didn't take away from what was a fast and enjoyable read. Fans of Tarantino and Coen Brothers films will dig this; cozy readers beware!

This is a must-read for fans of dark crime novels. Alternately funny, creepy, twisted, and very dark, with a character-driven story that positively sucks you in.

If you like cat mysteries keep moving. This one isn't for you.

Anthony Neil Smith, editor of the late great Plots with Guns webzine, holds nothing back in this unflinching, violent tale of very bad people doing very bad things. It's 180 pages of gunshots, kinky sex, and broken bones. The last few pages left me gasping for air.

They say that if the author doesn't catch the reader by the end of the first page, they'll never catch them. Some people are more forgiving and give the author the first chapter to hook them. Psychosomatic hooks you from the first sentence.

Anthony Neil Smith starts this novel with the accelerator mashed to the floor, and doesn't let up until the last line. Not one of the characters are likable. They are petty thieves, murderers, rapists, manipulators, thugs, drug dealers, and crack whores. Smith makes no illusions about trying to redeem any of them.

From a readers point of view, it is a roller-coaster ride of a novel, with twists and turns and dives that lift your rear off the seat and hills that send your stomach to the floor. From a writers point of view, it is either suicide or pure genius. The characters are emotionally and physically handicapped. They cannot get any better than they are in the first pages. They are stunted before the story gets off the ground. And Smith pulls it off. He makes compelling characters out of the dregs of society. You're not so much rooting for them as wondering who makes it to the last page alive.

There are so many plot threads running through the story, it would be very easy to get tangled up, but Smith twists them to perfection. This story is dark and grim, but, like a train-wreck, you can't tear your eyes from it. The tension starts high and stays that way, the only relief coming with the humor at the ridiculous situations the characters get themselves into.

Bottom line: Good story, good dialogue, great characterization. This is not a story for the faint of heart. Certain images will probably stick with me for a long time. If you're looking for a light and easy afternoon read, pick something else. If you're into hard-core crime fiction, this is a book for you.

How can a woman with no arms or legs be at the center of all this mayhem? Read and find out. Other reviewers have called for a this to be made into a movie and I can only agree. This has enough suspense, mystery and guns to be a Tarantino film.

It is an intense story from start to finish. It peels back the curtain into the hearts of the foulest criminals. These people do awful terrible things that will disgust and repel you. You will ask yourself, "can people trully be that evil?"

The only answer is yes. And people who live these kind of violent lives can hope for a happy ending. But we all know that's not going to happen. But that doesn't stop them from trying and nothing is going to stop you from reading to the bitter end.

You will be shocked and saddened but glad you read it.

A few days ago the author of Psychosomatic, Anthony Neil Smith, made downloads of the kindle version of his book free for 48 hours on Amazon.com. Since I'm always looking for new things to review at the HQ, and since "free" is always a bonus point, I snatched up the electronic version of his book (first published in 1995). I finished reading it last night and all I can say is: "Wow".

I don't think I've ridden a literary roller coaster of this magnitude since I jacked into a Joe Lansdale novel twenty years ago. What can you say to any book which begins with:

"Because Lydia didn't have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed-up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life."

I just kept on reading and wondered when I could get off the ride.

Everything we need to know about Psychosomatic is contained in the first sentence. It opens with quadriplegic Lydia paying the boxer to beat-up her ex. But the shake-down goes bust when the boxer accidently kills him. All of which is captured on a cheap video camera by a loser named Alan Crabtree, a wasted gambler and small fixer for southern fried mobsters. Crabtree makes the mistake of his worthless life by taking the video to Lydia and showing her the tragic results. Lydia decides he's just what she ordered and starts molding him into the master criminal she desires. And things just get worse from there on.

The action isn't merely confined to Alan Crabtree and Lydia. The author tosses in a pair of car thieves who resemble frat boys, Terry and Lancaster. Terry is smooth and can talk his way out of any situation. Lancaster uses brute force whenever the need arises. They are introduced into the story via a Monte Carlo sedan Crabtree buys from the duo. Together they travel up and down the highway looking for abandoned cars to steal. But suddenly Lancaster has an epipahany and turns into a psycho killer.

I will say the author writes movingly about the New South ( I think we are on the 8th or 9th one). The criminals travel through a landscape of convience stores and backwoods dead ends. He hails from this area, so he writes with conviction:

"This part of town was crowded with chain restaurants, motels, small businesses falling apart from the signs to the paint jobs to the bad parking lots, lot of troublemaking kids out wandering the streets trying to look like gang members even though the kids were scared of the real thing if they were to see them. It wasn't touristy New Orleans, the sprawling underclass suburbs, sinking into the Gulf of Mexico at the same rate as the rest of the city."

And this novel is firmly in Jim Thompson territory: there's hardly a sympathetic character among them. None of the characters are admirable, just pathetic. They've made their choices in life and taken it in the jaw. But there isn't much escape from this nightmare alley.The book also has one of the most gruesome rape scenes I've ever encountered. It'll stay with me for a long time (which I suspect was the intent). The novel ends with a grusesome conclusion where the guilty get paid in heaps. Not for those with tender feelings.

Psychosomatic is a book of revenge, escape, and criminal minds. Read it at your own risk.

[...]

Smith's first novel is a demented, occasionally grotesque piece of art about a fat, cowardly fringe criminal named Alan Crabtree, his own personal femme fatale, quadruple amputee Lydia, two sleazy small time criminals named Terry and Lancaster propelled suddenly into the big time of murder and rape, and a handful of other equally compelling characters. It's a remarkably labyrinthine plot that all comes together seamlessly at the end.

Psychosomatic : It's all in the mind. The twisted, brilliant mind of Anthony Neil Smith.

Anthony Neil Smith's wicked and wonderful 2005 debut novel, Psychosomatic, is blessed with an abundance of lurid and messed up characters.

There's Lydia the limbless spider-woman who is lures weak and feeble men into her web with ease; there's Terry and Lancaster, a con-man/ thug double act whose lives are spiralling way out of their control; there's Alan, the fat and sweaty, washed up croupier enamoured of Lydia.

And there's a host of other baroque and gaudy oddballs whose paths criss cross and tangle up to create a fantastic, free-wheeling, rush of a black comedy which goes a long way to supporting the view that hell really is other people. These people.

Add to the mix, oodles of whip crack lines and bucket loads of blood shed and you get a must read for fans of wild, pulpy crime capers.

Fantastic cover, too.

I have got to say that this book is pretty kickass. I'm only an occasional crime fiction reader, so I'm not predisposed to like this sort of book, but this is a great read--big rushes all throughout and expertly crafted. Of course if you're on the prudish side, you might want to choose something else, but this one works for me. Definitely worth a look.