Excellent reading
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Funny and thoughtfull at the same time. Plot is absolutely impredictable.
I bought it in a used books shop for some 50p and when i opened it from the very start i just sank in it i couldn't stop reading...
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Liked it
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Having read 4 other Colin Bateman books I found this book to be rather hard to get into initially. Bateman moves away from his usual Irish setting for the most part of this book with the events taking place mainly in New York. Yet again Dan Starkey finds himself over his head with Murder, deceit and in this case boxing. Whilst I did find it hard to get into, I would still recommend this book as its another exciting chapter in the life of poor old Dan.
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Best Bateman novel ever
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Easily his best book to date. While the other Dan Starkey novels are excellent, this is the one that started it all for me. Bateman has an excellent way with words and as he tells the story from Dan's point of view, you feel you are Dan Starkey. Being from Belfast myself, I can relate to where he is walking around and the way he says things, he is a typical Belfast man. Excellent book, excellent author
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Starkey Goes Stateside!
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Dan Starkey, ex-journalist, book writer, marriage wrecker, and international man of disaster extraordinaire is back! This is the second novel of Colin Bateman's involving the adventures of hapless and constantly helpless Dan Starkey. This time round Starkey is commissioned to write a biography on Northern Ireland's answer to Mike Tyson! Bobby "Fat Boy" McMasters is the best thing in Europe, (or so his manager, Geordie McClean, small time gangster, would have you believe.) Unfortunately, Starkey isn't convinced and is sure to drop the occasional hint in his typically subtle style - like a lead brick in a swimming pool!! Starkey becomes even more unconvinced when he finds out that McMasters is going after the World Heavyweight title against none other than Tyson himself! Starkey tags along with the McMasters entourage to New York where the fight is to be staged on St Patrick's Day. It isn't long before things begin to go haywire. Starkey, a self confessed coward tries desperately to avoid trouble, but as usual is always found at the centre of it!! This is another superb effort from Bateman who has managed to keep the pace of this story fast and furious. The usual twists are added to the tale, so just when you think every thing's easy to work out you find that he has led you up a blind alley. Bateman has an uncanny talent of taking you to the edge of suspense just like the cliffhangers from the old black & white "Flash Gordon" episodes. However, unlike in the following episode of Flash Gordon, there is no happen ending or miraculous rescue and Bateman pushes you over the edge. However, just as you are free falling he snatches you back and the tale takes off at its usual breakneck speed. Then to top it all he throws in the black humour that has you laughing out loud at the most awful of situations...
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Second Starkey adventure will have you laughing out loud
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In the second of Colin Bateman's novels to feature wise cracking drunken journalist Dan Starkey, Starkey receives an offer to accompany the entourage of Belfast boxer Bobby "Fat Boy" McMaster as press officer to New York for a St Patrick's Day showdown with Mike Tyson. With the disconcerting knowledge that his estranged wife Patricia is pregnant (and not to him), he accepts and is thrust headlong into another hilarious, violence peppered Starkey adventure. To begin with, black Muslim militants miscontrue some of the Fat Boy's comments and issue a fatwah on him, and then the Fat Boy's wife, Mary, mysteriously dissapears. Starkey sets about planning to rescue her, although the task is made onerous by the fact that his partner, the entourage's security officer Stanley Matchitt, is a notorious Loyalist killer. Like Divorcing Jack, there's plenty of violence so it's not a book for the faint of heart, however the violence is leavened by some good belly laughs at Starkey's chronic cynicisms and acidically witty observations. I am just about to begin reading the third Starkey novel ("Turbulent Priests"), I am confident it will be as good as "Divorcing Jack" and "Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men".
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