Book review - Last Year's Man by Paul Brazill

I’m a big fan of Paul Brazill’s use of prose. His books have other virtues, of course, beyond his writing style, but the fact that he’s a prose stylist deserves special mention. On almost every page of Last Year’s Man, and sometimes, it seems, in almost every paragraph, there’s a line you want to read out loud to a friend.

His books have three other standout qualities:

(1)    the memorable characters who populate them – eg, Drella, one of Seatown’s bigger villains: “His face was pallid and his lips were red, as if he’d been scrubbing them with a Brillo pad….Drella had a raspy voice that only added to the sinister appearance. A Welsh accent lurked beneath the surface.”

(2)    his inventive use of dialogue – “Sic transit Gloria bloody Gaynor,” said Drella.

(3)     the details he picks up on to give texture to his stories – “I saw a pack of bikers riding across the beach wearing wolf masks.” “I peeled off the price tag from the tartan Ben Sherman shirt I’d bought at the Scope shop.”

Last Year’s Man has all these Brazillian (if I can call them that) touches in abundance.

The plot can be summed up in a sentence: an ageing hit-man's past catches up with him.

This is a tale which draws you in from the opening sentence - “I leaned against an oak tree and pissed into a plastic Pepsi bottle” – and keeps a tight grip on your attention right to the final one.

It’s humorous, but it’s more than just an amusing book - it manages the difficult balancing act of being funny – often hilarious – and at the same time elegiac.

My one criticism? It ended a little too quickly. I would have liked to have read a lot more about Tommy Bennett, the main character in Last Year’s Man. Maybe there will be a sequel?*

Get it here:

Amazon UK

Amazon USA

*Breaking news - there will be a sequel. It's being written right now!

See also:

Cold London Blues by Paul Brazill

Con Morte by Axel Howertton

Eckhart Tolle, my pain body and me

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