Blurb
We’re all lying in the gutter, but some of us are staring at the spaces between the stars...
Seatown may not have a lot going for it – apart from the Roy Orbison lookalikes and Super Seventies Special every Thursday night, of course – but it is at least the place Mark Hammonds calls home. And after a decade away, it's the place he returns to when he has nowhere else to go.
From dead bikers to dodgy drug deals, from one downbeat bar to another, from strippers to gangsters and back again: the luckless former musician bounces from one misdeed to the next along with a litany of old acquaintances, almost as though he never left. And if only he can shake off everybody who wants to kill, maim or otherwise hurt him, maybe he could even think about staying.
After all, there’s no place like home, eh?
Review
I have been a big fan of Paul Brazill for many years. Those who haven't had the pleasure, think an Ealing Comedy directed by David Lynch.
Irreverant, dark, hilarious.
Kill Me Quick follows Mark Hammonds - erstwhile member of one-hit-wonder eighties band Blue Coronet - returning to the home of his birth - a dingy, lurid, dump of a place called Seatown.
A rich cast of lunatic characters - including Captain Cutlass, Uncle Shandy, Ava Banana and Don Amerigo - Donald to his friends - are there to welcome Mark. As is idiot best mate, Craig, a dodgy drug deal, a corpse in a caravan and several attempts on his life.
Here is a flavour of things in Seatown:
The inky-black night had melted into a grubby-grey autumn morning. Mark and Roy pushed a Morrison’s shopping trolley along the sea front. Wolfe’s body was inside with a Guy Fawkes mask covering the face. A ‘Penny For The Guy’ sign hung around the corpse’s neck.
A pair of screeching, emaciated seagulls cut through the granite sky and landed on the rusty metal railings that lined the wet promenade. They seemed to stare at Mark for a moment before they took off and swooped down on the Rorschach test of blood and junk food that had splatted the statue of Colonel William Wainwright.
Paul Brazill is the Brit Grit KIng of Comedy, the Dark Prince of Pissheads, Lunatics and Psychos, and Kill Me Quick is a fantastically entertaining romp, highly recommended for anyone with a sense of humour and a dark, dark soul.
Available from Fahrenheit Press:
Paperback: https://fahrenheit-press.myshopify.com/collections/paperbacks/products/paul-d-brazil-kill-me-quick-paperback
Kindle: https://fahrenheit-press.myshopify.com/collections/kindle-ebooks/products/paul-d-brazill-kill-me-quick-ebook-kindle-version