Brit Grit Alley features interviews, news and updates on what's happening down British crime fiction's booze and blood soaked alleyways.
By Paul Heatley
Recommended
Read: Meat Bubbles & Other Stories - Tom Leins
I’ve been a big fan of Tom
Leins’ work for a long time now. It’s gritty, it’s visceral, it’s stomach
churning - everything you want from crime fiction, British or otherwise. And
you know what else? He’s prolific as all hell, so if you wanna check out a
short story of his to find out if he’s for you, you won’t have to look far.
No, seriously, go to one of
your favourite publishers of short fiction - Flash Fiction Offensive, Spelk,
Near To The Knuckle, Shotgun Honey - and check.
I’ll wait.
Okay, cool, you’re back? Yeah,
I knew you’d be back.
So, Meat Bubbles & OtherStories, published by Near To The Knuckle. Set in Tom’s by now infamous
Paignton locale (a place he’s really made his own) and featuring his recurring
private eye Joe Rey, what we’ve got here are a selection of stories that run
every kind of brutal gamut you can imagine: we’ve got hookers, gangsters,
crooked cops, neo-Nazi’s - oh boy, the list goes on! Word of advice, though,
don’t make the same mistake I did and read this if your stomach is giving you
trouble. When Tom contacted me for a blurb, I’d left work early that day
feeling like there were snakes in my gut and I was gonna throw up (I did, if
you’re interested. There were no snakes.). However, I excitedly told him yes
and to send it straight over.
Well.
Oh boy.
Okay, so, it did nothing for
my physical health or feelings of queasiness, but I had a hell of a time
reading it!
That blurb I mentioned? Here
it is:
‘Tom Leins’ Paignton is close
to Hell on earth. His battle-scarred PI Joe Rey is navigating every circle of
it here - hookers, pimps, pornographers, killers, crooked cops, and every other
grotesque you could care (or not) to imagine make up the colourful characters
in this grim collection of noir from one of the premier writers of
gut-wrenching dark fiction currently at work. One day people will talk about
the fiction of Tom Leins the same way they talk about Derek Raymond’s - get on
board now and when that day comes you’ll be able to brag you were round at the
start.’
However, I think my favourite
line comes from Matt Phillips (author of Accidental Outlaws):
‘If you had to kill someone
with a book, you’d use this one.’
So there you have it. If all
this and those short stories I earlier advised you to check out (and you
totally did, right??) haven’t won you round, I don’t know what will!
There'll be more carryings on down Brit Grit Alley very soon, sorta kinda thing, like.
