This is a straight-forward heist-story, narrated in the first person. Darren Mile is a small-time career-criminal. He’s been in and out of the can since he was fifteen. At twenty-seven, he’s released from his most recent prison-stretch with no money, no job, and no prospect of either. Every time he gets released from prison, he swears that this time he’s going straight – he convinces himself that he really means it. But inevitably, the realities of life with a criminal record kick in, and out of desperation, he returns to stealing. In this instance, he pal Norris has the bones of a plan for a few geezers, a supermarket, and a hundred and twenty large.
Technically, there are a number of things wrong with this novel – dodgy stage-cockney dialogue, and a writing-style that lacks economy. Very few crime-writers have the ability to get away with language-use that isn’t lean and mean. For example, on his first night out of prison, Darren is reluctantly told by his brother that his old girlfriend, Alice has gotten married:
'What about Alice?’ I finally asked.
Terry shrugged. 'What about her?’
'How is she? Where is she? What’s she up to?”
'You know, this and that,’ he said, telling me absolutely nothing.
Let’s break that last sentence down. Why bother with the inessential clause at the end? “You know, this and that.” would have sufficed beautifully. The reader shouldn’t have everything explained to them like they’re a moron. Less is more, baby. When they’re discussing candidates for the job, the narrator tells us:
“I scratched my head and smoked a cigarette, as these things often speed up the thought process, and hit upon likely recruit.”
Does Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe tell us that he smoked a cigarette because it helped him to think? No – he just tells us that he ate another cigarette. In every Chandler detective novel, Marlowe tells us that he smoked a cigarette a least a dozen times. There’s always a point to it, and we never need to be told what the point is. He just keeps it physical, which is usually what works best. Sometimes the point is simply to inform the tone of the narrative. Danny King needs to work on tone. This novel is a crime-caper with no claustrophobic settings, no urban landscape, and a working class anti-hero who uses turns of phrase which simply don’t fit his characterization. For example, on discussing another candidate for the heist, a stoner Darren has known since childhood, he tells us:
“Whether or not he’d be reliable was somewhat open to debate.”
“Somewhat open to debate.” Do small-time working-class career-criminals with next to no education really talk like this? King makes this kind of mistake again and again – in the penultimate chapter, with the supermarket surrounded by armed police and a desperate escape-plan in motion, Darren is running for his life:
“There was a large concentration of Old Bill off to the left but a relatively clear run hard against the supermarket wall.”
No need to break this one down – first rule of writing anything – the reader isn’t stupid. This reads like a wild and crazy novel written by an eighteen year-old student about every drug-dealer, nut-bag and working-class hero he’s ever met, and lo and behold, they all talk like they’re half way through their first year of college. The problem isn’t that King isn’t a working-class geezer with form. He is. The problem is that 80% of his readership probably consists of David Baddiel generation wankers desperate for some “authentic” reportage on “the life”. For such people, simply the fact of Danny King’s criminal background is enough. He’s a working-class author striking a pose for the benefit of a middle-class readership who want to know what it’s like to be a “tasty geezer.” Whether or not he can do social realism is simply not important – hence the confusion of his language-use.
King’s greatest strength is his ability to accelerate a plot. But the effect of this narrative-arc, an essential in any pot-boiler, is sometimes ruined by an internal monologue that interferes with the rhythm. For example, when they’re rounding up the supermarket’s late-night staff before going after the money, Darren hears a gunshot and fears the worst. He runs to where the shooting took place, and finds, to his relief, that nobody’s hurt:
'What the fuck did you do that for?’ I demanded of Jacko.
'He came at me with a bottle and wouldn’t take fuck off for an answer. What d’you want me to do, let him smash me over the head and take my gun?’
Much as I was pissed off (although this had more to do with the fright I’d initially got than anything else), I had to concede that Jacko was right. If matey was determined to come at him, what else could he have done? At least he’d used his nut and showered the bastard with glass and wine rather than white-hot lead pellets. Jacko had done well. He’d kept his head when some Bruce Willis fan had been determined to lose his, and he’d done what he’d had to do to save the situation. It wasn’t good that he’d pulled the trigger, as that stuck five years on all of our sentences, but at least he hadn’t killed anyone.”
You see? The narrative is just clumsy. For all these flaws, however, there is one compliment I will pay Danny King – he succeeds in earning his living as a full-time writer. Given how incredibly difficult that is, the fact alone is worthy, prime-facie, of our respect. Even if he had to join the circus to do it, he’s got his hustle and it’s working for him. Unlike most of the new fiction the British publishing-industry foists upon us these days, at least it doesn’t pretend to be something called 'literature’.