Reviewed by: Keith Nixon
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
Smashwords store
Author:
For 13
years Will Viharo presented and produced the live cult movie cabaret
Thrillville. An author of multiple novels Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me
is the first starring PI Vic Valentine, originally published in 1995 until it
went out of print and was recently reissued. Will currently lives in San
Francisco with his wife and cats.
You can
learn more about the author at his website.
Description:
Nick
Winters is in love with a singer, Dolores. But as he's shaping up to make a
move on her there's a terrible accident and the pair are running for their
lives...Pursued by the police, zombies, werewolves and even themselves. Buckle
up for a roller coaster of a novel.
Appraisal:
Where to
start with this review? Well, perhaps with the author's own blurb - '...unlike
anything you've ever read.' Which is bang on, to say the least. It's hard to
describe this book. Quite frankly it's one of those that would have very little
chance of being traditionally published because it's so different, i.e. risky.
Nothing is
quite what it seems, place, characters or plot. An initial love story gone
wrong broadens into multiple strands where we follow Nick, Dolores and the cast
of characters written in parallel, but overlapping sub-plots, all written in
the third person. Then enter Nick again, writing in the first person,
apparently pulling together a movie script with the same characters involved.
Cue Nick turning into a lizard, zombies taking over the world, pornographic
movie making and twists aplenty and the result is one highly intriguing,
complex novel where a lot of concentration is required to keep up with the
changing scenes.
One element
that cuts all the way through the story is a 1950's theme - music, B monster
movies. One of the zombies, in fact the leader, is Elvis.
It's a
wildly unpredictable ride, as a reader I wasn't sure what would come next.
Which, back to the beginning, makes this review so hard to write. There are
some that I expect would pick this book up, then a few chapters in put it back
down again, because of this wild variation. But I suggest sticking with it,
simply to see what's going to appear out of the author's mind next.
FYI:
Violence,
swearing and lots of graphic sex scenes.
Format/Typo Issues:
Nothing
worth mention.
Rating: **** Four Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment