Country: Scotland
Genre: Noir
Pages: 345 kb (eOriginal)
Buy it here
DEAD MONEY is one of those novels you read with a wide, shit-eating grin across your face, as James Ellroy would say. I hadn't read much of Ray Banks' work before committing into reading this, but I'm very glad I did. To put it simply, the fact that DEAD MONEY doesn't have a hardcover or a paperback version, is a symptom of how conservative traditional book publishing has become. If this is turned into a screenplay and shot, I have no doubt DEAD MONEY will turn into a cult hit and make piles of money. According to Ray Banks, this is a complete rewriting of his first novel. He liked the story, but he didn't like anything else about. it. I haven't read the original (THE BIG BLIND), but I will trust Banks' word on it. On top of being a very fine noir, DEAD MONEY is an amazing story, carried around by the ambiguous Alan, who you can't help but love. Reading it is delightful like a midnight snack.
I love crime writers who think outside the box and Ray Banks fits that category quite nicely. It's easy to write a cops-and-robbers story, but a story that first hints and then leads its characters into the underworld of the place he lives in is a lot more difficult challenge. DEAD MONEY's main protagonist Alan Slater is a double-glazing salesman on a slump.His life is all over the place and all he finds to do is to hang out with his friend Beale and take part in poker games with shady characters. Since his friend is even more of a fuck up than him, he finds himself on the wrong end of a game and it has fatal consequences. Beale turns then to Alan to solve his problem, not only with what he has done, but with the debt he contracted. Alan might be a smiling shark, but he values Beale's friendship a lot, so he decides to help him out of his situation and falls through the rabbit-hole, right into the underworld.
Buy it here
My job was simple: agree in as few words as possible and sound like I was listening.
DEAD MONEY is one of those novels you read with a wide, shit-eating grin across your face, as James Ellroy would say. I hadn't read much of Ray Banks' work before committing into reading this, but I'm very glad I did. To put it simply, the fact that DEAD MONEY doesn't have a hardcover or a paperback version, is a symptom of how conservative traditional book publishing has become. If this is turned into a screenplay and shot, I have no doubt DEAD MONEY will turn into a cult hit and make piles of money. According to Ray Banks, this is a complete rewriting of his first novel. He liked the story, but he didn't like anything else about. it. I haven't read the original (THE BIG BLIND), but I will trust Banks' word on it. On top of being a very fine noir, DEAD MONEY is an amazing story, carried around by the ambiguous Alan, who you can't help but love. Reading it is delightful like a midnight snack.
I love crime writers who think outside the box and Ray Banks fits that category quite nicely. It's easy to write a cops-and-robbers story, but a story that first hints and then leads its characters into the underworld of the place he lives in is a lot more difficult challenge. DEAD MONEY's main protagonist Alan Slater is a double-glazing salesman on a slump.His life is all over the place and all he finds to do is to hang out with his friend Beale and take part in poker games with shady characters. Since his friend is even more of a fuck up than him, he finds himself on the wrong end of a game and it has fatal consequences. Beale turns then to Alan to solve his problem, not only with what he has done, but with the debt he contracted. Alan might be a smiling shark, but he values Beale's friendship a lot, so he decides to help him out of his situation and falls through the rabbit-hole, right into the underworld.
It was one of those fun pubs who were about as much fun as a deep vein thrombosis, and I knew the minute we stepped over the treshold that, cheap booze or no cheap booze, it was going to be a shitty night. We walked into what looked like a basement pumped full of dry ice and handed a fiver each to a hipster in a cage.
Ray Banks really understands what makes the beauty of a good crime story. It doesn't matter how long it takes before there is a crime. In fact, the main character could never even witness one, as long as he's taken care of properly. Alan Slater is a great protagonist. He's witty and seductive and no matter how hard you try, it's very difficult to scrub the aura of dishonesty about him. But you love him nonetheless, because he can express his growing sense of dread in a way that will reach out to you. Banks is pacing patiently his downfall into a world of problem and the gradual loss of control over his own life. The most Alan is trying to be responsible and is trying to be "the good dude in this" the deeper he gets into trouble and the less and less he has control over what happens to him. It asks a very important question about the nature of friendship: Is true friendship helping your friends at all cost or is it to help them realize how bad they messed up and help them take responsibility for what they did.
That is, my friends, the very principle behind great literature. Universality. Ray Banks' story hits a home run where other crime stories are just entertaining at best, is because it puts the reader in front of something that could happen to him. How far someone can go to help a friend who put himself in a troublesome situation. It doesn't matter whether there are a million bullets that fly or none at all, what turns a crime story into a visceral experience is its capacity to ask questions that will reach out to its reader. DEAD MONEY is a great story, it's tight as hell and its so deliberate that it's a complete joy to read. I would call this a guilty pleasure if I could see where I could fit "guilty" in there. I loved DEAD MONEY and I'm not ashamed of it at all. The only shameful thing is that Ray Banks doesn't have all the recognition he deserves.