Mike Stone brings us yet another entertaining review. Take it away, Mike!
I asked a question on these pages recently -- which Ken Bruen book should I read first? I was told The Guards and/or White Arrest.
So I bought the fifth Brant book, Vixen. Why? Cuz I’m such a maverick! But mainly because it’s a slim book and I’d just finished a thousand page door-stopper the night before. A novel I could read in a few days was an attractive proposition.
The vixen of the title is an insane female serial-killer named Angie James, who is apt to shoot, poison or stab somebody just to see what sort of face they pull as they die. Angie possesses not a single shred of humanity. She is beautiful, though, and casually manipulates two needy men into setting up a bombing campaign in south-east London for ransom money.
Chief Inspector Roberts gets chewed out by Superintendant Brown who demands a quick solution. The black WPC Falls is heading into alcoholism, the gay Porter Nash is heading for a breakdown, and it’s WPC Andrews’ first day on the job. Then there’s Brant. The reader is introduced to him on page 21, just as he’s getting a BJ from a prostitute.
Right.
Definitely not The Bill then.
On the evidence in Vixen, Brant is not a complex character. When he puts the boot into a pimp for beating up his girls, Brant does it because he enjoys meting out a kicking and because he knows it’s worth a shag or three. He abuses his colleagues, smokes and drinks where he likes, and drives like a maniac in borrowed cars. As for protecting his informers:
So I bought the fifth Brant book, Vixen. Why? Cuz I’m such a maverick! But mainly because it’s a slim book and I’d just finished a thousand page door-stopper the night before. A novel I could read in a few days was an attractive proposition.
The vixen of the title is an insane female serial-killer named Angie James, who is apt to shoot, poison or stab somebody just to see what sort of face they pull as they die. Angie possesses not a single shred of humanity. She is beautiful, though, and casually manipulates two needy men into setting up a bombing campaign in south-east London for ransom money.
Chief Inspector Roberts gets chewed out by Superintendant Brown who demands a quick solution. The black WPC Falls is heading into alcoholism, the gay Porter Nash is heading for a breakdown, and it’s WPC Andrews’ first day on the job. Then there’s Brant. The reader is introduced to him on page 21, just as he’s getting a BJ from a prostitute.
Right.
Definitely not The Bill then.
On the evidence in Vixen, Brant is not a complex character. When he puts the boot into a pimp for beating up his girls, Brant does it because he enjoys meting out a kicking and because he knows it’s worth a shag or three. He abuses his colleagues, smokes and drinks where he likes, and drives like a maniac in borrowed cars. As for protecting his informers:
His last two had, respectively, been kebabed and drowned in a toilet. Word was out you talked to Brant you ended up dead and in horrible fashion. Plus, the villains were an added peril […].
The above quote is one of my favourite examples of Bruen humour. Here’s another:
Brant signalled to the waitress who was dressed in flamenco gear, with the name tag, ‘Rosalita’. She sashayed over and lisped:
“Si, senor?”
She was from
Peckham.
Cracking stuff.
When I mentioned Falls and Porter Nash above, you might have noticed I said ‘black WPC Falls’ and ‘gay Porter Nash’. In today’s society, a person’s skin colour or sexual orientation supposedly don’t matter, but in Bruen’s south-east London police squad it does. Racism and homophobia are rife. When Super Brown is told Falls has visited Nash in hospital, he remarks:
“That’s supposed to be some sort of reassurance, is it? A nigger visiting a pooftah. God, the police force is gone down the shitter.”
When a doctor confided to a nurse, “God help us if they’re the good guys,” I could only nod in agreement.
Vixen then is not a police procedural -- the actual detective work is minimal. Brant is the anti-Morse. But the pacing is rat-a-tat-tat and the dialogue is barbed. It’s unputdownable. I read it in a single sitting.
Bruen is brilliant.
Nuff said.
Michael Stone
Michael Stone was born in 1966 in Stoke-on-Trent, England. Since losing most of his eyesight to Usher Syndrome, he has retreated from your world to travel the dark corners of inner space. To put it more prosaically, he daydreams a lot.
Read more about Michael and his fiction here.
