Cops and robbers…
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The Crime Studio – Steve Aylett’s debut book – is a hilariously warped look at a US city where crime runs rampant. Contrary to the publishers description, I would hesitate to call this a novel – there’s certainly nothing resembling any overarching plot or character development here – rather this is a collection of 27 very short stories set in the same locale and featuring the odd recurring character. In Beerlight almost every character seems to be a crook, and the few that aren’t are either corrupt or inept police and lawyers. Each chapter tells a tale of a different misadventure amongst the criminal fraternity, where invariably something goes wrong with hilarious results. Aylett’s prose style is a heady mix of highly compressed inventiveness and bizarre similies (with just a dash of barely restrained street-mime hatred) and the whole thing reads as if Mark Leyner had taken to writing crime fiction. As with Leyner Aylett’s rich writing can become rather wearing after a while, so the fact that this is a very brief book is no bad thing. Recommended.
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Awesome dude (I'm from California)
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This book was brilliant. The prose and the stories are very cool and I suggest this to everyone. Ayletts characters are incredibly original and the world they live in is hilarious. Buy it. Dude.
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