This weekend I finally read
This weekend I finally read Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen by Charles Higson - I swiped a review copy from GSpot years ago (well, to be precise) and Gill read it in fits of laughter as soon as I got it home. I was eager to read it, but the guy who reviewed the books for GSpot said could he have it back please as he wanted to read it and write it up.
So our copy went back and I never got to read it. A few weeks ago I spotted a copy in a charity shop and thought “YES! now is the time”, so I bought it, and this weekend I read it. And it really is as funny as everyone says, if not funnier. And especially relevant as the car that the protagonist is trying to dispose of is a Saab 900 (as Mister Kitchen says: “very popular car, the old model nine hundred. Hippest car around at the moment. Your Saab enthusiast don’t like the new model, reckon it don’t look like a Saab… more like a BMW”). I seem to have been harvesting literary Saab references recently - Douglas Adams seems to be good for a few, the guy who picks up Arthur Dent in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish has a grey 900, if I remember rightly.
Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen has nice big writing and fast pacing - easy to read in 1 sitting, though it took me two what with hopping trains and stuff, very very hard to put down. Have to say the cocaine scenes made my nose hurt rather though. Ouch.