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Cruel Poetry (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Sunshine penetrates the salt-streaked window above Renata's bed, sliding across the peeling paint of the sill to a stain on the mottled purple bedspread crumpled..." (more)
Key Phrases: Vicki Hendricks, Cruel Poetry, Tropical Moons (more...)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Renata-called Rennie by friends, lovers, and people who pay her for sex, which is to say just about everyone in Miami Beach-doesn't so much like living dangerously as she likes doing fun things that happen to be dangerous. One of those fun things is Richard, an English professor who's risking his marriage by continuing to see Rennie but just can't help himself. Her reckless allure has also captivated her colleague Francisco and her next door neighbor Julie, who eavesdrops on Rennie's exploits and struggles to turn them into the great American novel. The blood, lust and drama are vivid and visceral, but Hendricks is so determined to avoid trite lessons and happy endings that she fails to assemble any kind of ending at all, relying instead on entropy and disaster to bring her story stumbling to a halt. These exquisitely developed characters deserve better. As Hendricks refines her hallmark noir style, perhaps she'll get a better handle on which clichés are worth keeping.
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Review

"'Frighteningly close to perfection' Allan Guthrie, author of Hard Man 'I never miss a book by Vicki Hendricks. No one on the current scene is writing supercharged, erotic, real noir novels like these' George P. Pelecanos 'No one writes better about white trash gone bad than Hendricks... Guaranteed to raise your temperature, whatever the weather' Guardian 'Tauntingly playful and consistently raunchy, Hendricks has blazed down a path all her own... Chandler, Hammett and Cain might be shocked at such manoeuvres. But Hendricks is their first true female equivalent' Independent on Sunday 'The toughest female writer of noir novels on the block' Sunday Express"

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Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Serpent's Tail (May 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1852429275
ISBN-13: 978-1852429270
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #439,576 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Sunshine penetrates the salt-streaked window above Renata's bed, sliding across the peeling paint of the sill to a stain on the mottled purple bedspread crumpled around her feet. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vicki Hendricks, Cruel Poetry, Tropical Moons, South Beach, The Moons, Jesus Christ, Prince Albert, Professor Dick

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews

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4.4 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The cruelest poetry--and a blast to read, May 27, 2007

By	Dave Zeltserman (Needham, MA) - See all my reviews

Vicki Hendrick's latest, Cruel Poetry, is a surrealistic noirish journey through the seediest sections of Miami's South Beach and an exploration into the destructive nature that artists/writers face. Renata is the ultimate femme fatale--beautiful, oozing sexuality, and in her own way a force of nature every bit as dangerous as one of the hurricanes that blow through South Florida. Emotionally unavailable, she lives for kicks and sensual pleasure. Jules is a struggling novelist desperate to write a book and hoping to finally win her father's approval. Sexually repressed, she latches onto Renata for inspiration, living next to Renata in the same seedy South Beach Hotel so she can listen in through a hole in the wall to Renata's sexual escapades with both her boyfriend and customers. Renata knows about this and encourages it, glad in her own way to be able to help the creative process. Richard, a poet and professor at a local University, has become one of Renata's regulars. He has also latched onto Renata, desperate for the inspiration he believes her beauty and sensuality can give him to create again. Both Richard and Jules are caught in a downward spiral, both making one mistake after the next. Both are stifled creatively, both are seeking Renata as their muse and cure, and both are stripped bare at the end, literally and figuratively, by their compulsive need to create.

Hendricks pulls no punches--with the sex and the noirish descent these character fall into. Dreamlike, thematically rich, this is the real deal. Noir at it's best. So whether it's that you like your crime fiction populated by dark, twisted souls on a one-way ticket to hell, that you're looking for something out of the norm that's beautifully written, or you just want to read one of the best crime novels out this year, I highly recommend Cruel Poetry.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Queen is back!, May 26, 2007

By	Charlie Stella (Fords, New Joisey) - See all my reviews

Renata is an empirical existentialist with a perfect ten body. She lives for pleasure full throttle and makes no excuses; she hooks for a living because it fits.

Richard is a poet, professor, husband and father obsessively in love with the above mentioned hooker. He's lost in his job, his marriage, his creativity and his quest for Renata's love. His attempts at coexistence with a normal life are spiraling out of control.

Julie is an aspiring writer paralyzed by insecurity and fear. Her need to prove herself with a tome worthy of daddy's praise places her in the path of a hurricane (both figuratively and literally). She's not quite sure if she's a lesbian or just another victim of love (love for Renata).

Francisco is also a hooker (the male version) and a small time drug dealer; a Florida version of a knockaround guy minus the traditional mob, although he does have business associates who make being around him dangerous. He's also Renata's lover of choice (as in she doesn't charge him), but is street savvy enough to understand the term "lover" as it applies to those who can't love; he's a convenience much the same way his job is a convenience to those requiring his services.

Pepe is a baby four foot python ... enough said.

Fans of Hendricks' special brand of noir erotica have been waiting five years for her latest sizzler and they'll be more than happy with Cruel Poetry. Spot on dialogue and an ability to absorb readers into her characters' dark worlds (worlds we can all relate to--whether they are dominated by obsession, jealousy, a failed marriage, a walk on the wild side, snakes or just an overwhelming need to feel complete) place Hendricks' noir at the forefront of the genre.

The poet's insatiable desire for Renata to love him has made a mess of his life. How his world comes apart piece by piece is fascinating and all too real. The good girl playing with dangerous people faces frightening consequences she can't imagine. Renata's emotional bond with Pepe (the cobra) reminds one of another of Hendrick's noir tales, Iguana Love. Renata can't feel love for people the way she can respect a snake (Pepe is genuine). Although she cares for people (Julie, Francisco and to some extent, even Richard), it will take a hurricane and a neatly wrapped surprise ending before she ever gets the chance to feel what everyone else around her seem so constrained by.

Vickie Hendricks remains the first Queen of Noir. Her much anticipated latest, Cruel Poetry, will draw you in with visceral, erotic and psychological obsessions. The ending will rock your world. Long live the Queen.

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5.0 out of 5 stars This book sizzles, May 25, 2007

By	Patrick Ellingham (Hollywood, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Elvis may have left the building, but "the Queen of Florida noir erotica," is standing solid at center stage. Like the King, her performance sizzles from start to finish. Cruel Poetry, the long-awaited fifth novel of Vicki Hendricks, is a hunk of burning love, lust, passion, obsession, sexuality (perverse and otherwise), betrayal, and murder that builds to such a fever pitch as it reaches its cataclysmic ending, that you can't turn the pages fast enough to see what happens next. At the centerpiece of a group of complex and compelling characters is Renata. Sexy yet deadly, Renata would like to think she believes in nothing. She is early described as having no feelings: "But she has none--no love, no pain . . . Life is safe when nothing matters." A prostitute who gives her body for money, and enjoys what she does, whether it is with a male or female, she still allows herself to be drawn into a kind of black hole from which none of the characters may escape. Francisco is described as "her lover and business partner," but even he wants more from her than the incredible sex they experience. Her next door neighbor, Jules, an aspiring writer who listens at the hole in the wall to Renata's sexual encounters, is drawn into Renata's life and may lose herself. The most haunted is Renata's obsessed poetry professor, Richard, who wants to take her away from all this and will risk everything and descend to any depth to have her. Throw in assorted private eyes, greasy lawyers, an angry wife, angrier drug dealers, hungry alligators, an impending hurricane, and a four foot Burmese python (just a baby) named Pepe that also loves Renata and mix them into the dark underbelly of Miami Beach that tourists seldom get to see or even imagine and you will be staring into a maelstrom for which the word noir doesn't seem dark nor hot enough. You will find yourself reading this book more than once.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is Poetry To My Ears
I really loved Vicki Hendrick's debut MIAMI PURITY. CRUEL POETRY is even steamier. CRUEL POETRY slides the razor edge of the taboo. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Michael Mccarty

1.0 out of 5 stars NO LOVE!
I gave it a try. Why? Georges P. Pelecanos said some good things about it. I love Pelecanos a great fan. Read more

Published 14 months ago by C. Autin

2.0 out of 5 stars How much you like this book...
...will be pretty much a function of how much you believe porn can replace an original plot in a noir novel. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Jeff

5.0 out of 5 stars A fne thriller
In Miami Beach if you are male and can crawl let alone walk, you are attracted to the happy hooker Renata. Read more

Published on October 24, 2007 by Harriet Klausner

5.0 out of 5 stars Hendricks' Best Yet
Cruel Poetry is Vicki Hendricks' best, most compelling novel yet. And that's a lot to say considering the accolades she received for her earlier work. Read more

Published on July 8, 2007 by Pat MacEnulty

5.0 out of 5 stars How low can you go?
In this, her latest novel, Hendricks, the undisputed queen of South Florida noir, plunges deeper into the pathological motivations of people who by some deep human flaw have shed... Read more

Published on July 6, 2007 by Carole A. Borges

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Characters
I just finished Vicki Hendricks' newest book, CRUEL POETRY, and loved it.
Dennis Lehane calls her "the high priestess of neo-noir," as do many others,and this book doesn't... Read more

Published on June 22, 2007 by Neil S. Plakcy

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex and obsession on Miami Beach
I have read all of Vicki Hendrick's novels and this might be the best one. The story of Renata, Richard and Jules, with its strange mix of love, obsession, and indifference, is... Read more

Published on May 24, 2007 by B. Sullivan

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