Order REMO WENT ROGUE here
Leslie likes to fuck men.
Sometimes she ends up fucking some dudes that she doesn't really like.
It happens.
So what?
My parents have berated me all my life for playing video games. They didn't understand. How could they "get" the immersive experience of controlling a virtual destiny, playing God to pixels and polygons. Today, I can't scrape my parents off ridiculous games like Farmville of Cafe World, while I'm trying to translate the wordless bliss video games into my literary experience. It hasn't been easy to find literature that reflect video game thinking, but Mike McCrary's REMO WENT ROGUE might've just succeeded in capturing the spirit of the Holy Grail of video games Grand Theft Auto, the game where you have to jack cars and kill people for over 40 hours. It's a unique, refreshing crime of brand fiction that surfs an intangible live between parody and paranoia.
Remo Cobb's a hot shot defense attorney. He represents the most violent criminals, the scum of the Earth and gets them to walk. When Remo inexplicably threw the Mashburn brothers (violent and psychopathic bank robbers) ' case, he thought he did humanity a solid and that Karma would carry him into the happily ever after. Turns out that they aren't too dead like he expected them to be, and that they aren't too keen on forgiveness and getting ripped off. Remo's moment of weakness not only awakened him to a vulnerable self-awareness he never expected to face in his lifetime, but it could also cost him both his dignity and his life. Nothing could prepare Remo Cobb from facing the consequences of the only act of kindness he's ever perpetrated.
Mike McCrary has a quirky, but distinctive style. It's textbook example of what creative writing classes show. I'll be honest here and admit it's a pleasure to read even if it feels a little rigid at times. The prose of Mike McCrary is flat out aesthetically fun to read, the Chuck Palahniuk's or Duane Swierczynski's are. It has a distinct identity, although it resembles the prose of a couple other famous writers: McCrary's use of language is stripped and telegraphic, but the context and the sense of humour with which he wraps it with mutates your perspective on what you're reading and makes unlikely scenes come to life. The dreaded, complicated action scenes amongst others are roaring and kinetic, in REMO WENT ROGUE.
He's held back from beating rapists, murders and others into unrecognizable puddles, but - like a lot of people - Harris can taste the burning fantasy of beating the piss out of Remo.
Harris is exactly what you'd expect.
Big.
Fat.
Bald.
Asshole.
There is one major issue to REMO WENT ROGUE. Once Remo understands that his life is at stake, he begins what I call the "Remo Cobb Moping Tour". He knocks to every possible door for help, and predictably, nobody wants to give him the time of day, sending him into a deeper and deeper round of self-loathing. Not only this segment of REMO WENT ROGUE is way too long, but it borderlines on cliché. The novel pulls a nice 180 degrees for the last third, though and offers a finale that reminded me of Allan Guthrie's SAVAGE NIGHT in terms of high chaos factor. The final third is also where my Grand Theft Auto comparison takes all its meaning, it's the moment where the novel demands that you stop reading it viscerally and just start enjoying the vivid and balletic chaos it's shoving down your throat.
REMO WENT ROGUE was fun. Its content was akin to traditional crime fiction, but its presentation was quirky and stylish. I mean, the double cross storyline is as classic as it gets, but Mike McCrary's protagonist and general angle on the case were refreshing to me. It's not a cover-to-cover smooth ride, but the payoff is worth your while. If you're one of these stranger gamer/reader hybrids or if you're just a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, you'll enjoy the reckless abandon REMO WENT ROGUE has been written with. It's a reading unlike most of what you experienced before. Mike McCrary is a dynamic new talent on the scene and quite honestly, I'd read his rewriting of Pride & Prejudice as long as it's written in the same prose he wrote REMO WENT ROGUE with.
