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For Book's Sake - July '10
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is the debut novel by Andy Rivers, a self-professed Geordie-in-exile who, prior to starting his writing career, had worked as everything from mobile sandwich salesman to outdoor traffic cone washer. The story is about two brothers trying to make their way in modern Newcastle, having grown up in a poverty-stricken, dysfunctional environment where keeping your nose clean amid football violence, police corruption and local organized crime is no mean feat.
Billy and Carlos Reeves are half-brothers, sharing a mother. Billy never knew his father, while Carlos’ dad is separated (on good terms) from the mother. The brothers are extremely close and protective of one another, a theme expanded on during various retrospectives on the duo’s younger lives. Billy Reeves is a family man and very much the centred one of the pair. He settled down with his childhood sweetheart and wants nothing more than to do right by his family, instilling his two sons with a sense of right and wrong while encouraging them to stand up for themselves. Carlos on the other hand inherited his father’s fiery temper, becoming a successful boxer and eventually opening his own gym, where he trains local youths to channel their energy productively and avoid meaningless violence on the streets.
As the story begins, we are given a preview of the final confrontation between the protagonists and their erstwhile nemesis, leaving the rest of the book to fill in the blanks with what is in fact a well-written piece of crime fiction, filled with enough colourful characters, shifts in perspective, cutting one-liners and blistering body-blows to make Guy Ritchie proud. The story is related to us in the first person, switching the narrative from one character to the next in order to give us an implicit understanding of the motives of each character involved, experiencing the shifting loyalties and emotions of everyone from the local crime lord to a decidedly unscrupulous judge. All said, this is an enjoyable book that is actually very funny in places. It’s heavy on swearing, violence (implied and otherwise) and is decidedly politically incorrect, but at no point does it ever seem like the author is forcing it, or trying hard to shock or impress; the story is plausible, the characters are well fleshed-out and the pace will keep the reader hooked. I genuinely enjoyed this as an unpretentious, adrenalin-fuelled romp.
The Crack - May '10
Radgepacket 4
Byker Books are at it again, assembling the elite of British fiction for a fourth volume of the weird and wonderful and the downright outrageous. These short stories aren’t for the timid or fainthearted. They are gritty and wicked and brilliantly written. Only perturbed minds and a dark imagination can produce fiction like this. The twenty odd collaboration of authors included Gareth Mews, Keith Gingell, Ray Banks, plus one of my British favourites Danny King, the list goes on. With stories of a punk band riots, a headless man and childhood traumas; these are only some of the ‘mayhem and madness from the Inner Cities’. The Radgepacket format was jiggled around for this latest volume, interviews with the authors were scrapped and more pages and more stories were added. Thank God for those vocal readers out there, otherwise we could have missed out on some of these ‘Radgy’ contributors. If your reading tastes are eccentric, this little gem is a laugh a chapter. I’m hunting out volume one, two and three as we speak.
Big Beat From Badsville Apr '10
Radgepacket 4
Setting: Various
Protagonist: Various rapscallions, madmen and cutpurses
Series?: Luckily, yes, there are more
A collection of 22 short stories - gritty, funny, weird, warped and wonderful. Some of my favourites were Ray Banks' THE DEACON SHUFFLE about a robbery in a chemist's shop, Keith Gingell's REPO - a chilling tale of a man who values houses that have been repossessed, Danny King's IT STARTED WITH A DISS - a great story of a schoolboy crush, Steve Porter's creepy BLURRED GIRL DIARIES, Paul Brazill's THE NIGHT WATCHMAN and Blaine Ward's AN EYE FOR AN EYE. They're not all crime stories but many of them have a crime in, and all of them are deliciously nasty. An anthology for those who like their fiction twisted, profane and depraved. Me, I loved it.
The Sun Feb '10
More Burglar Diaries: Thieves Like Us
Laugh-out-loud funny!
The Crack Feb '10
More Burglar Diaries: Thieves Like Us
Following on from Danny King’s first novel The Burglar Diaries and based on the BBC3 comedy series ‘Thieves Like Us’, King brings back on board the lovable scally Bex to narrate this full novelisation of the six episodes from the show. I jumped out of my seat with excitement when this landed on my desk, having read all of his books. I hadn’t purposely missed the series, but I wasn’t thinking that the show would be the laugh-a-minute his books are. Regrettably I think I might have missed a brilliant series. In the book the chapters were utterly hysterical; I could imagine all the ‘jobs’ being cocked-up on telly - ‘The Tea Pot Job’, ‘The Footballer Job’ - and it made me laugh even harder. In the end my fiancé just stopped asking me what was so funny. I just loved the concluding adventure for my two favourite burglars, Bex and Ollie. I wanted to see them go straight and have a happy ending but you just knew their dirty dealings were going to catch up with them eventually. HF
Lovereading.co.uk Nov '09
More Burglar Diaries: Thieves Like Us
You may have seen the BBC3 TV series “Thieves Like Us” about a pair of jobbing burglars. Despite the dubious career choice, Bex and Ollie are lovable characters who have a certain morality when it comes to burglary and don’t take things of sentimental value. In More Burglar Diaries we follow Bex and Ollie on various “jobs” getting themselves in to scrapes and brushes with the law while trying to keep on the right side of their girlfriends. Danny King is one of those bubbling under talents that deserves to be up there with some of our best comedy writers.
True Faith March '10
I’m Rivelino: A Life Of Two Halves
We thought it was time to give a bit of a ‘shout out’ (this Twitter thing has clearly got us down with tha kidz) to a book that has been around for a few months now courtesy of a lad called Andy Rivers. Andy is a Mag, he’s from Byker and this is his first book and it’s a Bobby Dazzler. Basically, it’s a story of his life following NUFC from being a six year old kid through to modern day and it will have Mags of a certain vintage smiling along at some of his reminiscences. The book was conceived due to a promise made to his mate, sadly passed away, to write about some of their trips away and tales of the charming locals at Rotherham and ‘that’ away end at Peterborough in the promotion season gave me goosebumps – as it was when it was!
The story is not a straightforward football tale though and follows the life of a normal Mag with normal issues to face in life – the wrench of moving away from the region to find work, the discovery of the joys of foreign travel and various scams and blags that many of us will relate to. His tales of working as a rep on foreign coach trips are top drawer and he has a healthy dislike of Souness, Shepherd and some of the other clowns that have been involved in our club. Overall it’s a really enjoyable read and is the latest in a line of good stuff coming out of the Byker Books stable – have a look on their online short stories (www.bykerbooks.co.uk), there’s even some TF contributors hoyed in there for good measure.
Top stuff!
Gareth Harrison
The Crack August '09
I’m Rivelino: A Life Of Two Halves
Andy Rivers, Byker Books, £6.99
A few years back the only books on football you could buy were either full of statistics and had the word “Rothman’s” on the cover, or were full of comic strips and had the words “Roy of the Rovers” on the cover. These days, bookshop shelves have their own sections for football books and this is the latest. It doesn’t concern the brilliant Brazilian attacking midfield player, Rivelino, but one Andy Rivers, Newcastle United fan and long-suffering with it. Like the best of the “I was there” reminisces Rivers isn’t so much concerned with match reports, but gives you a flavour – more than a flavour – the full spectrum of what it is like to be a football fan. And naturally, being a Newcastle United fan, this spectrum of emotions swoop from high to low (to lower) almost match by match. It helps that it’s well written, funny and most importantly smacks of the truth; a truth than any true football fan will recognize. Running from the 70s (although not kicking in properly until the 80s) through to the present day, any student of broken dreams will lap this up. GM
Lovereading.co.uk August '09
Definitely one that any football fan is going to relate to, I’m Rivelino follows one fan’s obsession with his football team, Newcastle United. It’s funny, fanatical and thoroughly enjoyable. Whoever you support you are going to recognise yourself and your friends somewhere is this book.
| The real 'Fever Pitch' What Andy Rivers give us in his superb debut,'I'm Rivelino', is a book for the true football supporter; the old school. Those of us that have spent most of their Saturdays standing on the terraces in the rain rather than squeezed into a plastic seat. Those of us that still refer to the four divisions in numbers and who still remember the days when managers wore tracksuits and every team had a fat midfielder.
Laced with ascerbic Geordie wit, Andy Rivers takes the reader through his life following his beloved Newcastle, from the tight-shorted days of the early eighties to the Sky dominated, money-laden spectacle we have today.
Matches are replayed - or to be more accurate - match days are relived. For it is in his descriptions of the banter, the lager, and the scams that Rivers truly excels. He takes us there, rooting for The Toon, staggering out of the ground to the nearest boozer, escaping from the opposition big lads. We're not only drawn into rooting for Newcastle, but for Rivers himself - one away day to Leeds is a particularly hilarious example.
But this is more than a book about football. It is a book about relationships. The relationship between the hierarchy of a club and the average supporter, the relationship between the supporter and the team, and most of all, the relationship between friends.
If Nick Hornby had been working class, perhaps he might have written this book. Thing is, Nick Hornby was never working class. He was a University bod from Surrey. His 'Fever Pitch', about his life as an Arsenal supporter, therefore, couldn't help harbouring . . . pretensions. I mean, Colin Firth played him in the film. Says it all, really.
'I'm Rivelino' has no such pretensions. It just tells it how it is.
A must read for every football supporter that's experienced the hope and the heartache of following their team for thirty years.
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Noir Originals July '09
Not a review or comment on us or our books as such but a rather entertaining interview that your favourite editor (that's me incidentally!) gave to Nick Quantrill for Allan Guthries 'Noir Originals' website :-
The Crack April ‘09
Radgepacket – Tales from the Inner Cities Volume Two
This is a collection of 14 short stories told with uncompromising, gritty realism by up-and-coming authors, many of them local. There is some really imaginative writing in this collection which offers a sharp critique of the trashy, beer-and-a-kebab culture.
'The Gay Downstairs' , 'The Crossing' and 'The Underpass' are three of the best tales - cleverly-woven they create engaging characters and witty dialogue.
A63 Revisited March ‘09
Radgepacket – Tales from the Inner Cities Volume One
‘Radgepacket 1’ is the equivalent of a baseball bat. Every story makes a play for a home run. In fact, the ‘Radgepacket’ series is doing for short stories what ‘The Slab’ series is doing for contemporary poetry - bringing together bright, fresh and varied voices with edge, and both series are excellent.
Take ‘Choke’, the short story by Nick Boldock. His narrator picks up this enthusiastic bird in a bar, takes her home, and there she is impersonating the naked dead à la Marilyn Monroe. And, wouldn’t you guess, somebody calls round. Hate it when that happens. Great story if you like them painful.
Andy Rivers’ tale, ‘Blagger’, is a classic of the ‘giant weed fights back’ genre - Batman and Superman as re-written by Charlie Kray. No messing. Job well done.
Then there is the disturbing ‘Chop Him Up For Firewood’ by Barrie Darke about an emotionally traumatic and violent reaction to a funeral, or Will Diamond’s ‘The Seven Sins of Santa’ which describes an even more dramatic visit to the pub. In fact, pubs abound, turning up in Stephen Cooper’s ‘Dark Horses’ and Ali Rutherford’s ‘Haikus and Heavy’ about a group of jaw-busting poets with cruel initiation rites.
The counter-balance to all this ‘lads’ stuff is provided by Jan Harris’ excellent ‘Gratitude Diary’ whose soft ironic take on positive thinking stays beautifully and elegantly the subtle side of biting parody, Ragna Brent’s ‘The Lemon Pip’ which should be read to every NCT birthing class, Darrell Iriving’s erotically playful ‘She Fancies Me’, and Danny King’s Roald Dahlesque ‘Harriets First Day’.
What’s left? Two twisty yarns: Ian Ayris’ ‘My Mate Tel’ and Rod Glenn’s ‘Paranoid’, and something of an odd-one-out, Catherine Edmunds’ ‘Northern Lights’, a genuinely disturbing piece addressing schizophrenia.
Byker Books assure us that ‘Radgepacket 2’ is even better, which will make it very good indeed. Yeah, we’re hooked.