Sunday 11 May 2014

Guy Portman

Strange, compulsive, can't-stop-reading kind of book.




Amazon.com Necropolis


My review -


This is the story of Dyson Devereux, the Head of Burials and Cremations for his local council. He despises the council, his fellow workers, almost everyone except his neighbour Eve whom he ‘tolerates’. Nevertheless, he exudes a studied charm and women seem to admire him greatly. He is very intelligent and speaks a number of languages but by any definition, he’s a sociopath. We discover to what extent as the story progresses.


I usually dislike present tense narrations and find them wearing and artificial but this story dragged me headlong into it to the extent that I rapidly forgot my dislike. It’s a story I couldn’t help reading. It had an inevitability to it, which made reading it like watching a train crash. There’s a gory bit, brace yourself, but I can’t say I’ve ever read a book quite like it – and I more than quite like it! I really enjoyed this.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds interesting, I've grabbed a copy.

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  2. You make an interesting point about present tense narrations - I'm normally quite a fan of the immediacy, and I definitely think Guy gets that right in Necropolis. Have you read American Psycho? It's a similar sort of thing and a good comparison piece, I think. :)

    My review: Necropolis by Guy Portman

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