Sunday, March 9, 2014

A Mermaid Drowns In The Midnight Lounge / Will Viharo


Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Thriller

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO Paper: YES
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

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