Review

Moist

By Mark Haskell Smith

Published by Atlantic Books

Be in no doubt – this hilarious and fast-moving crime novel is politically incorrect in just about every possible way, but that doesn’t mean to say you shouldn’t read it.

Lie back, place your tongue firmly in your cheek, crack open a beer and lose yourself for an hour or two in the shady world of Los Angeles’ Mexican mafia.

When geeky Bob, a goateed slacker at United Pathology, takes delivery of a severed arm, he becomes transfixed by the limb’s tattoo of a buxom, dark-haired Latina. More than that, he falls in love with her, and decides to find out who she is. To do that, of course, he has to track down the owner of the arm.

Meanwhile, the owner, Amado, and his ruthless boss, Esteban, are also trying to hunt down the missing limb before it can be used as evidence by the FBI to bring down Esteban’s criminal empire.

From the start, there are a number of cock-ups. And quite a few other characters too, all of whom are drawn into the increasingly knotted case of the tattooed arm. To say more would be to ruin the unfolding drama, but suffice to say that matters are complicated by disloyal gang members, sexy women, too much dope, a gun fetish and one man’s obsession with TV soap operas.

There are echoes here of Elmore Leonard, and a nod or two to Tarantino, but Smith’s writing has a crazy life of its own. He’s clearly enjoying himself. By keeping the tone humorous and his characters almost cartoonish in aspect, he just about gets away with his voluminously-chested female characters and the Mexicans’ way of carrying on. By letting us into some of the travails of these desperados (killing people can be a strain on the nerves, after all), he cleverly manages to elicit from us some sympathy.

Analysis aside, though, Moist is a bloody good laugh and well worth immersing yourself in as you lie by the pool with a margarita by your side. Entiendes?

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor

Also try Mark Haskell Smith’s Delicious, a similarly heady brew of murder and mayhem in the unlikely setting of Hawaii.

As a film company flies in to shoot a TV programme, two catering companies go head to head in a grim battle for the contract. Who will win – the long-established local company run, or the upstart interlopers from Las Vegas? Expect more less-than PC action and more laughs.

---