Synopsis/blurb…..
After his girlfriend
leaves and takes their young son with her, Joey Hidalgo is left alone in the
trailer they formerly called home with nothing to do but get drunk and
contemplate her reasons. Is he really as angry, as volatile, so close to
constant violence, as she claims he is?
No, Joey thinks, of
course not, the real problem is money--or lack thereof. Joey's a bartender,
always struggling to make ends meet, unlike his most vile regular customer, the
rich and racist fatboy. So Joey hatches a plan to get his family back by taking
him for all he's worth.
But the fatboy isn't
going to make it easy for them. Neither is Joey's temper. Things are going to
get messy, and it's gonna be one hell of a long night.
My kind of book. Joey is our main character and a barman. I do
like visiting bars in my reading, you get to meet plenty of interesting people,
you get to eavesdrop on conversations and you see people make fools of
themselves when the alcohol intake exceeds common sense. They are often places
of tension and confrontation. As a barman, attentive and sober you can observe
people when they are otherwise distracted.
Joey has a temper. His partner has left him and taken their
son with her. Joey never was good enough for Billie’s family and the fact that
she has run home to mummy and daddy rubs salt in the wound. Billie is refusing
to let him see Charlie until she has sorted a place to live and Joey and the
situation calms down. Billie has concerns over Joey’s temper and with good
reason. A phone conversation doesn’t go his way and his phone gets hurled
against the wall and smashed. Irrational behaviour and proof that the red mist
descends way too often.
Communication between Joey and Billie is strained. She doesn’t
always answer his calls and when they do arrange to meet, she sends her dad
instead to explain the situation. They are having two different conversations.
What Joey hears in his head is that the separation is temporary and that he can
fix the situation with money. Money will solve all the problems in their
relationship because the cause of the tension and the fights and the arguments
comes from the pressures that a lack of it brings. You don’t feel that Billie
feels the same way. Joey’s current problem is how to get some.
In his work, Joey is calm and rational and polite to
customers. He respects the working girls that frequent the bar, picking up
business when the shift workers pile in the bar at the end of the day mainly
from Bell’s.
Adam Bell is the son of the boss and the fatboy and one of
the bar’s best customers. Rude and racist and with a sense of entitlement that
having money brings. Joey is an easy target for his prejudices.
Hey, spic, get me a drink. The
racial epithet changed on an almost nightly basis.
Hey, beaner. Hey, wetback.
Joey sucks it all up, for a while at least. He has a plan. Working
with Lynne, Fatboy’s favourite squeeze, he may get to teach Adam some manners
and relieve the Bell family of some green and lo and behold every problem in
his life is going to be fixed……… Yeah, right.
Great story, interesting characters. I quite liked Joey
despite his faults and I was keen to see if he comes out ahead. There are some
fantastic scenes and some enjoyable dialogue involving Joey and his nemesis
Fatboy. With the plan in action the tension between the pair escalates.
114 pages long – a perfect length for this kind of tale. A tick
in every box for - setting, story, pace, characters, confrontation, action and
outcome. Plus there’s a sprinkling of black humour in the piece, especially in
the verbal jousting between our two main combatants.
5 from 5
Paul Heatley is the author of a fair few novellas.
The two I
have enjoyed so far are The Motel Whore and The Vampire – both very dark reads.
Plenty more await me – An Eye For An Eye, The Pitbull, The Mess, Three and The
Boy.
Read in July 2017
Published – 2017
Page count - 114
Source – review copy from publisher All Due Respect Books
(cheers Mike)
Format - Kindle
Col, I have been to bars (saloons) and met characters like Joey Hidalgo and Adam Bell mostly in westerns. There is a certain appeal to this kind of novels with their somewhat dysfunctional characters.
ReplyDeleteThat's a reasonable analogy, Prashant. Dysfunctional characters have the most appeal reading-wise.
DeleteTop book! I reckon this one will be appearing in plenty of year-end lists.
ReplyDeleteHalfway through the year, Tom and it's on mine!
DeleteSounds like a setup for a really solid noir story, Col. I'm with you about bars as solid settings in stories, too. They can be really effective for stirring up conflict, and for all sorts of character development.
ReplyDeleteMargot, the bar scenario works well in setting up this one. Events occur elsewhere of course but it's a crucial backdrop for our tale.
DeleteThe other two you reviewed by him did not appeal, but this comes much closer.
ReplyDeleteYes, it has its lighter moments, so might be more appealing.
DeleteI'm with Tracy! she says exactly what I thought - the Motel Whore didn't attract me one little bit, but this one is a maybe...
DeleteI really liked it and it does have a lighter touch compared to the others I've tried.
DeleteCol – The bartender’s plan to take the “fatboy” intrigues me. I am going to pick up this one.
ReplyDeleteElgin, I think you might enjoy it more than THE MOTEL WHORE.
DeleteGreat review of a great book.
ReplyDeleteCheers.
Delete