Customer Reviews

Very Mercenary

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

 

 

Plot Summary: Covergirl heiress Leigh Tiller is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her father, Kip Tiller sends his favorite hitman to take out the kidnappers AND his daughter. Meanwhile, a small art guerilla group discovers where Leigh is being held and decides to spring her themselves. Once Leigh is in league with the Strategic Art Defense, they commence on a five day three city exhibition of eye-opening illegal art displays designed by their brilliant leader, Laser. In hot pursuit is a colorful parade of goombas who are busy trying to kill Leigh and each other.

I was so ready for this to crash and burn that I'm kind of in awe that it didn't, and furthermore, it even has a happy ending! What a surprise. For me, this book calls to mind the kind of insane comedy found in movies like Raising Arizona or A Fish Called Wanda. Everyone has a few loose screws, so insanity becomes the standard here and it's just a question of how nuts are they?

The murder and mayhem run freely, like booze at an open bar wedding, and there's no real mystery to solve. This book is more like a fugitive thriller, with the Strategic Art Defense guys barely a step ahead of their numerous foes on a cross-country chase from New York to Las Vegas.

The different sets of goons that Kip Tiller has on speed dial are so outrageous they should package and sell them as action figures. There's the mutilated doctor known as The Serologist, the biker chick from hell with a Dolly Parton rack, the prepubescent gang-bangers known as the Sultans, and the bazooka toting Bison brothers.

The group that runs with Leigh and Laser are a bit hard to pin down individually, although some of the best scenes involve this posse of misfits. I loved it when Cody lists his favorite places to meet women who will get him laid. That's some funny stuff when he's discoursing on how a trendy Target shopper is different from a brawny Costco employee in bed (or on a pallet of Grisham novels).

This was a strange story that entertained me quite well and had everything I'm looking for - comedy, violence, misdirection, romance, and adventure - but the style is distinctly unique. This little fish is swimming far outside the mainstream, but it doesn't care in the slightest.

Very Mercenary is an amusing romp through the culture and subcultures of America. The novel's cast of renegade artists go on a road trip 60's freakout style, seeking to illuminate the unjust nature of consumer-driven economies with bursts of modern PR and an heiress to get them the headlines. It may sound serious, pretentious, but it's not. The plot works because you can't take anyone in the novel too seriously (well, except for The Serologist who's out to kill them all), I mean the main character is named Laser Mechanic, and he's a no-foolin' ninja. dig that.

Very Mercenary has a furious pace, the action is almost non-stop, and it's very enjoyable.

also, Mr. Casablanca deserves credit in showing furries as the criminally deviant sociopaths they really are. I just hope it doesn't land him at the bottom of a fur pile he can't escape from.

I'm a honest guy. So let me be straight: I didn't buy this. I was given a copy by Mr. Casablanca for the purposes of reviewing. He made no suggestion that I had to be positive in my review. All I had to do was share my opinion on Amazon.com.

This book is fun. Nothing but fun. After digesting a lot of heavy fic and non-fic lately, V. Merc was a change of pace. The style of prose--third person, present tense--threw me off initially, I must admit. Found it a struggle to get into. Once that story got rolling along, though, I was hooked. The concept of an artistic terrorist organisation, a sort of PETA for the visual arts, was hilarious. What they do is so outlandish. 'Interesting' is probably the most appropriate word to describe the plot. This book comes from way left of field. It's playing with some really familiar ideas, stuff you see in movies and on TV every day, but it tackles them in a completely original way. The book isn't totally serious, but it's not what I'd call a comedic work either. This is a book that's hard to classify. Once I got started with V Merc, I just powered through it. I hope we get to see some of these characters, particularly the hit man, again in Casablanca's future works. Others, though? I'm not so sure. If anything lets this book down, it's the characterisation. A few of the characters are genuinely intriguing--the 'hero', the heiress, the hit man--while others are ... I don't know, some I just didn't care about. Casablanca didn't give us enough to care if and when they suffered or triumphed. They were extras and nothing more. Still, though, plenty of established writers have that problem. Mr. Casablanca, on the other hand, is an emerging writer. A new voice. This is his second novel. I see big, big, big things coming from this guy. No doubt about it. I think the formula--a silly thrill ride packed with action and kooky characters and plenty of nods to mass media--is a winner. Definitely going to pick up his first work, 6 Sick Hipsters, now.

I read Very Mercenary last Summer, and I read it in a single day while traveling through a few layovers on route to New York. A short review would simply tell you that I disembarked my last flight with a smile on my face. I did. It was a big smile, a good day. So, this longer review is a long time coming, and it comes late, but the good news for everyone browsing here, is that it's not too late to pick up Rayo Casablanca's second novel and inject some kick-ass into your life.

One look at the cover and title, and I was pulled in. It's graphic and sharp and perfect; really, everything that so many novels on the shelf are not (I hope Casablanca's future novels retain the look). As a visually inclined artist, that can sell me, or at the very least, set my expectations. This novel had me marked in a laser sight. I opened the pages and welcomed my fate.

Very Mercenary is no Rockwell painting and certainly, despite the name of a main character (Leigh) being a subtle nod toward Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker, this is definitely no still life. This novel moves. It's an American story told in lock, stock, smoking barrel tradition. It flips and kicks. It is fun. The novel mixes saturated hues with splattered reds and fills the canvas.

Casablanca creates characters that initially possess a laundry list of unlikeable traits, and somehow, as the story progresses, he makes them likable. Self-involved artists steeped in their own brand of narcissism, a rich-bitch deb, a serial killer(The Seriologist), and a host of face-punched cameos all unravel each other until you find yourself unequivocally on their side -- good or evil, smart or stupid-- rooting for them all. The person the reader may expect to like the least, the heiress "princess" Leigh, turns out to be the character you may root for the most as she stumbles upon her passions within her twisted, rolling adventure.

Sparking set pieces crack and the characters shine. Scenes are filled with Wendy-O-Williams biker chicks, teenage gangstas, drug-addled psychotics, bazookas and harpoons. This is the stuff of comic books and action films. The comparisons to that brand of storytelling are inevitable, and according to my taste, I applaud it. I could compare the novel to those by Charlie Huston or Duane Swierczynski, which would be a good start, but it's impossible not to think of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino here. I think those names provide a more appropriate frame for this world.

Among all of this visceral chaos and visual goodness (are you listening Hollywood?), Casablanca manages in a small, almost meta way, to satirize and provide some subtext with regard to the spontaneity of art and life. It's no easy trick, and I should add, it's no easy trick to create a romantic relationship in a hail of bullets. I'm a tough customer when it comes to romantic emotion, and I must confess that for a few pages this feeling surfaces in perfect pitch. The character dimensions resonate. My ears burned. It's that moment when I realized this novel rises above many others written in a similar vein.

The novel allows itself to be fun. It takes the best parts of 6 Sick Hipsters, leaves any heavy handed proselytizing behind, and manages to find plausible motivations for Casablanca's over-the-top kinetics. The characters live and the thematics are subtle, allowing the world to exist within its own spontaneous combustions. It just opens the door and begs you to dive in and go for the ride.

If I had a critical issue, it would be with the choice of ending, but that may be a matter of personal taste. As chosen, it still works very well, and that may be a credit to the novel, as I can see any number of endings working toward a satisfying result.

Just once, I want to be able to look a girl in the eye, wink, and say with all sincerity, "Wasn't always a ninja." Very Mercenary is a snow-globe of cool and chaos that does it's damage quick and leaves you wanting more. Very kick-ass and very welcome on this reader's shelf. 5 stars.

Leigh Tiller, beautiful New York socialite and "billionaire fashionista" (remind you of someone?), is kidnapped by a bear, a monkey, a penguin, and a cat. By chance, she is later noticed in a penthouse window by one Laser Mechanic -- ambitious head of the Strategic Art Defense, a group of guerrilla artists (yes, you read that right) -- and he is instantly struck by her beauty.

Soon, the life's goal of Laser the asthmatic artist becomes to rescue Leigh and return her to her father, Kip Tiller, at his casino in Las Vegas. (While, of course, spreading his SAD agenda to a wider audience through the inevitable media coverage.)

Trouble is, Kip doesn't want her back. Always one to take advantage of an opportunity, he has therefore hired The Serologist, a sadistic doctor with an ultraloyal assistant named Olivier, to ensure he never has to deal with his daughter again.

What results is Very Mercenary, a road-trip novel of Gumball Rally proportions. Numerous groups, including Momma Gash's "girls" and a preteen street gang called the Black Sultans, eventually head West in pursuit, all rocketing toward an explosive finale that made me laugh and cringe at the same time.

Author Rayo Casablanca (6 Sick Hipsters) draws his characters with broad strokes so they're easily identifiable, and his novel manages to be both extremely clever and cleverly extreme at the same time. He lays on the happy ending a little thick, but everything in Very Mercenary is painted with a wide brush. It's not a great book, but it is a lot of fun, and sometimes that's all you want out of a novel.