Flesh House

I am a big- no make that HUGE- fan of Stuart MacBride and his dark ,gallows humour but this book fell well short of his high standards and descended into the sort of formulaic writing that has seen the early end of many a promising writer.Macbride seems to confuse deadpan with funny and his little asides wear very thin long before one reaches half way point in this self indulgent shock-horror which only hits the right notes when the writing is grounded in some sort of common sense observations.I mean, truly , how many worthwhile jokes are there about hacking up body parts?The secnes inside the Flesher's Liar are simply awful full of unrelenting gobbledegook and I lost interest way beyonf the end and the whole thing was only just saved by D.I. Steele who is without a doubt the most interesting aspect of this simply ghastly tale.Inch's descent into madness was not much of a descent since he seemed half mad anyway and the descriptions of him got motre and more silly as the book moves on.In reaching always for the extremes Macbride has betrayed his real skill- and that was always in his ability to effectively describe reality, as grim as that sometimes is; here he seems to glory in the wierd, rejoice in the obnoxious and be a cheer leader for the insane and in doing so might have enjoyed himself but I for one was not at all interested in such slef indulgent claptrap.Stuart Macbride is perhaps actaully beliveing he has arrived and he can do anything and get away with it and that might well be right but its difficult to forgive an earthy talent writing such shoddy, gratuitous cheap stuff.I know he can do better and look forward to seeing it soon. This is , as they say, niot his finest moment ; not by a long way.

I absolutely agree with the review.The book was ugly and dire in equal measure and I have to confess I gave up after a leaden 300 pages.I thought ; Why am I wasting my time on this rubbish?IF anything the prevuious reviwer is being too kind as I saw no talent here at all although I agree that Steele was halfway intetresting.

Have to agree.This book is a masive disappointment in all ways .I enjoyed Granite City but this one is at best average and I also gave up after about 350 pages not wanting to read any more of the nonesense on ffer,Stele kept me going but even her little quips became wearisome after a while.