Mr. In-Between - Softcover

Cross, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 149769258X ISBN 13: 9781497692589

Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller, 2015

Synopsis

Neil Cross, the award-winning creator of Luther, is at his best in this depiction of the Tattooed Man and his lewd, murky underworld Jon Bennet is the perfect employee: systematic, productive, and utterly reliable. He is also completely detached from the world around him and seemingly feels nothing . . . for Jon's life is anything but common. On the tight leash of the Tattooed Man, Jon kills and maims on order. And he's good at it. But Jon's days of favor are about to end. After bumping into old school friends, he slowly reenters the normal world, where the bonds of friendship, love, and kindness are expected, and he finds himself changing back into the person he once was. But the Tattooed Man requires total servitude, and his wrath is more fearful than Jon could ever have expected. "Neil Cross applies a sharp satirical gaze to inarticulate male working-class culture. . . . Cross's portrayal of male friendship, the rituals of working-class life and the shock of bereavement is superbly done." -The Observer "The precision of thought, psychological scope and massive inner crises [Jon Bennet] goes through as his friend is dragged deeper down justifies the hype around this first novel." -Esquire "A tightly written thriller that starts out dirty-realist and violent and then modulates into something rather different and thought-provoking, philosophical . . . Bleak, dark, with a distinctly modern-gothic imagination, and certainly readable." -The Literary Review "Cross's first novel displays a subtle mind grappling with a thrilling tale of perverse redemption." -The Independent on Sunday Neil Cross (b. 1969) is a British novelist and screenwriter best known as the creator of the multiple-award-winning international hit BBC crime series Luther, starring Idris Elba, and the international hit horror movie Mama. His highly acclaimed memoir, Heartland, was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize in 2006. Cross has also written several thrillers, including Captured, Holloway Falls, and Always the Sun, which was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. Cross continues to write for TV and film in the United Kingdom and the United States. He lives with his wife and two sons in Wellington, New Zealand.

About this title

Review:

Jon Bennett is the perfect employee: efficient, completely loyal, conscientious to the last. But his job is murder--pure, cold and calculated. It is only when he meets an old friend that the life he has forged for himself amid the nameless, the faceless and the heartless is challenged and he is forced for the first time to face the consequences of his actions.

Cruel, powerful and decidedly unnerving, Mr In-Between is an uncomfortable portrait of a man who has so successfully erased his past that the stirring of love and friendship becomes an agony that is too much to endure.

We never really know why Jon Bennett turned out the way he did, and it actually doesn't matter. What matters is the knowledge that, from the minute that Andy and Cathy appear on the scene, there will be a descent into the kind of madness from which there is no return. At one point there is a false sense that some kind of status quo has been reached, but Cathy's death merely acts as a way to ensure that the descent continues until it becomes all the more obvious that there is only one way out.

As searingly painful as many of the physical wounds Jon Bennett inflicts on his countless victims on behalf of the bizarre, yet somehow captivating, Tattooed Man, Mr In-Between is a disturbing, powerful novel that will leave an indelible mark on the mind. --Susan Harrison

Review:

"Neil Cross applies a sharp satirical gaze to inarticulate male working-class culture. . . . Cross's portrayal of male friendship, the rituals of working-class life and the shock of bereavement is superbly done." --The Observer

"The precision of thought, psychological scope and massive inner crises [Jon Bennet] goes through as his friend is dragged deeper down justifies the hype around this first novel." --Esquire

"A tightly written thriller that starts out dirty-realist and violent and then modulates into something rather different and thought-provoking, philosophical . . . Bleak, dark, with a distinctly modern-gothic imagination, and certainly readable." --The Literary Review

"Cross's first novel displays a subtle mind grappling with a thrilling tale of perverse redemption." --The Independent on Sunday

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 149769258X
• ISBN 13: 9781497692589
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288