Country: Scotland
Genre: Noir
Pages: 36 (Kindle)/96 (Paperback)
In case you don't know who Allan Guthrie is, let me make it clear for you. You're missing out. BIG TIME. He's one of the leading novelist of the noir underground. It's hard to find him in the book stores, but if you're apt enough on the internet, you're bound to discover his work. And if you're selling noir short as traditional crime fiction, don't fool yourself, you're wrong. Enter a world where criminals, perpetrators, instigators and shady characters are kings and good, evil and justice are hidden and kept prisoner in a suffocating closet. That's noir. It's about how long can you survive in uncharted moral territory. And Allan Guthrie might be one of the finest living noir writers we have.
So Killing Mum is the story of Carlos Morales, better known as Charlie. He's running a tanning salon he took from a guy named Florida Al (what a great noir name) and uses it as a front for his activities. Is he a drug dealer? No. Is he a flat out mobster? No. It's even more creative than that. Carlos is a broker. He deals in hitmen and contract killings. It was one ordinary day at the office when this offer came. The target? Valerie Anderson, who happens to be Carlos' mum. The man is half-Spanish, half-British (or Scottish, kind of undisclosed to my landmark ignorance) Since he considers himself a professional and not a savage dealer of death, Carlos puts a plan together to smoke his mother's potential enemies out of their holes. And you guessed it. Shit hits the fan. I'm not going to say more.
I reviewed another novella from Guthrie two weeks ago, Bye Bye Baby. It's strange because there are things that I enjoyed a lot more, and things I liked a lot less. It's very different one from another and according to the man himself, Killing Mum is more representative of his overall work. There is no cartoonish undertones to this novella. The life of Carlos Morales is as bleak and intense as it gets, and that's how I like my noir. Darker than the celestial void. It's a more straightforward approach (I had guessed some important details from the start), but Guthrie manages to keep things interesting by withholding some information from the reader in order to help shaping the idea. Not every writer than pull this off, but Guthrie can.
It's not as original as Bye Bye Baby, it has the odd metaphor (lips like hungry worms struck me as strange), but it's grittier and I forgive a lot of things to a writer that takes a hard swing while keeping his integrity. Overall, I thought it was a little weaker than Bye Bye Baby, but it was still an amazing read. You can't strike a homerun at every book, but a double with three R.B.Is are not to shabby on your stats either.. It's like, I love red beer the most, but in case there's none, I will gladly take some lager. I'm just rambling here.Killing Mum a strong, wild ride of a novella that you will want to finish in one setting. It's one of Allan Guthrie's biggest strengths. His writing is so focused, structured and thoroughly mean that you just can't leave the pages. A great addition to your noir collection.
