Review:
a darkly comic picture of the world where justice is random and violence is an ordered and mild-mannered affair. (The Telegraph)
14 bleak funny pitiless tales ... This is life looked at through the wrong end of a telescope, the vision of Nathaniel West in Miss Lonelyhearts, and to my mind just as good ... Inside every fat git there's a poet trying to get out. Well, he's out. (Observer on Barcelona Plates)
Sayle is a funny man, and these tales of pensioners-turned-hitmen, mysterious white Fiat Unos, and inveterate hypochondriacs defy you not to smile at the incremental absurdity of ordinary life. (The Sunday Times on Barcelona Plates)
A cracking read .. dense with smart ideas, sour observations and loony rants (Independent on Sunday on Barcelona Plates)
Barcelona Plates will put a smile on your face and a chill down your spine (Time Out on Barcelona Plates)
Alexei Sayle's manner on the page is the same as it is on screen and stage: arch, dessicated and menacing ... 'The Last Woman Killed in the War' is a thrilling and sensitive meditation on history, race and identity; confirming Sayle as a brilliant chronicler of big stories set in small worlds." (The Times)
This book is a complete revelation to me ... It's punchy and real and you feel the real weight of a personality behind it. It's terribly funny, full of characters who come out of reality rather than out of other fiction, and I completely agree with those who say that the final story, 'The Last Woman Killed in the War' is a masterpiece. The end of it is one of the most extraordinary pieces of writing I can remember. Brilliant tragedy and brilliant comedy delivered in one stunning sentence. It reminded me of the awesome ending to Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust. More importantly, though, it reminded me most of nothing I'd ever read before. (Douglas Adams)
These stories are eventful, high-energy, unpredictable, implausible yarns, full of swearing, cars, guns and knives, alcohol, violence and mad people. And they're also very funny. (Independent)
There is not a single disappointment among the 14 tales here each manages to twist and turn its way through just enough pages, never outstaying its welcome and, more often than not, turning up a stonker of a surprise as a pay-off. In a criminally neglected genre, Alexei Sayle has just turned out to be one of the masters. (Big Issue)
Book Description:
Alexei Sayle is back, with a new collection of dark, timely, and comic tales, read by the author. These dazzlingly written stories cut right to the heart of the modern world.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.