12 best books of 2012

I read this year much more than in 2011, but a lot of good books I read were published earlier, not in 2012. I haven't had a chance to review all of the books below, and I hope I'll find the time to review those that were left unreviewed.

Defending Jacob, by William Landay

The Chemistry of Tears, by Peter Carey

The Land of Decoration, by Grace McCleen

Canada, by Richard Ford

Arcadia, by Lauren Groff

A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers

Flight, by Adam Thorpe

The Devil I Know, by Claire Kilroy

The Yips, by Nicola Barker

The Bitch, by Les Edgerton

Ancient Light, by John Banville

Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig

best reads-2012

I included in this list those books that were published before 2012 but were read by me this year. In no particular order:

The Best American Noir of the Century, ed. by Penzler and Ellroy

A Single Shot, Matthew F. Jones

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

The Dispatcher, by Ryan David Jahn

Savages, by Don Winslow

Act of Fear, by Michael Collins

Benny Muscles In, by Peter Rabe

Million Dollar Baby, by F.X. Toole

Brown's Requiem, by James Ellroy

Dead Money, by Ray Banks

Killy, by Donald Westlake

The Hunter, by Richard Stark

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Interface, Joe Gores

High Priest of California, by Charles Willeford

Wild Wives, by Charles Willeford

The Cold War Swap, by Ross Thomas

Psychosomatic, by Anthony Neil Smith

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, by Horace Mccoy

best non-fiction of the year

The Locked Ward, by Dennis O'Donnell
Zona, by Geoff Dyer
American Hardcore, by Steven Blush
Homicide, by David Simon
Killing Season, by Miles Corwin
my son, my son, by Douglas Galbraith

Crime Factory: Hard Labour

Crime Factory: Hard Labour

Crime Factory Publications, 2012

Australia is far from the other continents, but its geographical location does not detract from the fact that in Australia they write good literature, too. Workers of the Crime Factory’d made the second anthology, this time – all-Australian. Short stories for an anthology are written by writers who live or lived in Australia. Among the authors there are veterans who published dozens of novels, and novice, who published less than a dozen stories.

Among the obvious advantages of the collection is correct placement of stories (thanks to the editors). «Hard Labour» starts with strong stories and also ends with them. All that is in the middle is of varying quality. The first two stories are authored by Garry Disher and Leigh Redhead, known outside their native continent. Disher presented brilliantly plotted «Wyatt's Art», the story about a professional burglar Wyatt. To enjoy the story, it is not necessary to know what happened in the previous novels about Wyatt. «Grassed» by Leigh Redhead is much more emotional and more "Australian". Drugs, free love, communes - it's all there on the green continent, adjusted for local color. «Killing Peacocks» by Angela Savage is a neo-noir story of domestic violence, with a grim finale.

After the kick-start there is a bulk of the stories, which are well-written, but devoid of anything that would make them stand out from the dozens of other similar crime stories.

Among the names, I had little or no knowledge, it is worth noting David Whish-Wilson with his «In Savage Freedom», a grim story of a father who is out of prison and wants to save his son from the criminal world, and Andrew Nette, with «Chasing Atlantis», a story that best reveals the specificity of Australian crime. Doomsday cult, rapists of minors, fields planted with marijuana, a conman, specializing in cult rip-offs - the story deserves the award as "the most Australian."

Rounding out the collection two works of masters, Adrian McKinty («The Dutch Book») and Peter Corris («Prodigal Son»). The action in «The Dutch Book» takes place in Boston, but the main character is Australian. The story is about that life in general is a dangerous game, and gamblers know about it more than anybody else. «Prodigal Son», the story of a private investigator, is interesting in how Corris makes his detective Cliff Hardy not a knight on mean streets, frozen in the 40's, but the modern detective, using modern technology. Although in terms of morality Hardy is old-fashioned chap.

After the heavy shift this anthology is what needs to relax and get to know about the dark side of Australia.

Ken Bruen video profile

I rarely do such a thing as posting there some sort of promotional material, but I've been a fan of Open Road Media for a long time, I thought I'd post there their new video profile where Ken Bruen looks at Irish Noir.

These video materials are surely admirably directed and deeper than any book trailers as you can find on the Internet. I believe the future is in video like this, with focus on writer, not a particular book.

MysteriousPress.com is bringing back Ken Bruen's The White Trilogy in print and electronic format. In Bruen¹s The White Trilogy, he explores the dark, seedy streets of London through the eyes of two tough, aging cops on their search for their 'White Arrest'every policeman¹s dream, the White Arrest is a high-profile success that makes up for all past failures. For Roberts and his brutal partner Brant, this means going up against a mysterious hitman in Taming the Alien, and a cunning kingpin in The McDead.

Psychosomatic

Anthony Neil Smith
Psychosomatic

Self-published ebook, 2011
(originally published by Point Blank in 2006)

Because Lydia didn’t have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed-up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life. Before the car wreck took her limbs, she was in control of Ronnie. She kept the house, the Lexus, and got a generous check every month. Thankfully they never had kids, so the money was hers to do with as she pleased—Caribbean trips, an interior designer, acceptance in the power circle of Gulf Coast doctors, lawyers, casino investors. Then an SUV turned her sporty coupe to scrap and Lydia to a quad amputee.

Even having lost arms and legs, Lydia could not forgive her ex-husband his outright mockery: bastard brought a girl into Lydia’s house and forced Lydia to watch as he’d had sex with a girl. But the attack on her ex-husband goes awry, he was indeed murdered, so was the middleweight. Murderer, against all the circumstances, is a fat gambler Alan Crabtree, which original plan was to shoot the beating on video. Bringing the videorecord to Lydia and hoping to get some money from her, Alan tries on the role of Lydia’s lover. A lover, but a nurse for her, too: he helps her bathe, eat, deal with prostheses, he takes her out of the house. Alan sees Lydia as a gentle creature that needs care and warmth. Lydia gives him an allowance, and Alan, instead of looking for a job, gamles her money away. Soon the work for Alan appears: Lydia, whose husband was a cocaine dealer, promotes Alan as a hit man, and Alan gets the first customer, an old friend of Lydia, the dealer as well.

Alan has to kill another dealer, a partner of the late Ronnie. Alan, who is no murderer at heart, begins to muddy the waters and waste time when in the story come a couple of car thiefs, who know Alan pretty well.

Next we read about murders, chase through several states, revenge psychopath, in general, all the range of pulp pleasures. The story is told from different points of view, from Alan and Lydia to the car thiefs, the dealer and the strange girl dressed as a nurse. Legless and armless, Lydia is the axis around which novel’s events evolve. But Lydia is the least convincing character there. She is, of course, femme fatale, straight from film noir more than half a century ago, but at the same time, she is not the typical femme fatale. In «Psychosomatic» she plays with several men, trying to get what she wants, but she is not a senseless bitch, who cares only for money or power. She needs a man who always would care about her, but she at the same time does not want a one man, and she needs two, three, so that they’d adore her. Men are not ready for such a scheme and don’t want to share Lydia with someone else.

Anthony Neil Smith in his debut novel combines captivating authenticity in detail with grotesquely plot, and one can only encourage this combination.

Fast, agile, explosive book with the finale at the airport, just as exciting, as was exciting airport finale of «The Hunter» by Richard Stark.

The Bitch

Les Edgerton
The Bitch

Bare Knuckles Press, 2011

Jake, a former thief, changed profession. Now, instead of locks and safes, he works with hair. He is a stylist at the beauty salon and plans to open his own business. Jake was in prison twice, but his boss does not know about it, and he doesn’t need to know. Jake is not going to prison for a third time, because the third strike for him will be the last. He finally goes straight, graduated from college, married a lovely woman by the name of Paris, with whom he takes care of his younger brother Bobby. The parents of the two brothers were burned in their own house, and since then, big brother has been looking after younger.

Only a bright future ahead, until one day, a phone rings. Jake’s cell-mate Walker Joy calls Jake and asks him for a favor. Four years Jake has not seen Walker and dreamed that he will not see him ever. Now Jake can not send Walker back to where he wants to, because the Walker saved Jake's life in prison. One favor for another, especially as Walker has a few secrets about Jake. If these secrets will be known to cops, Jake may have to prepare for a life sentence already.

Walker recently released from prison, and he is in need to earn extra money. On a tip from a jeweler Walker should rob another jeweler, and Jake just has to help with the safe. Robbery plan is designed so that success should be one hundred percent. Jake, agreeing to help, knows that he can already say goodbye to his new life.

The Bitch from the book's title is a slang expression that criminals use in relation to the law of the three convictions.

«He knew what it meant all right. The Bitch. Three strikes and you're out. Ha-bitch-ual criminal. One more pop and I knew the judge would be peering down at me over his wireframes and saying, "Jacob Bishop, I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment. Have a nice day, loser." Just the thought made my balls shrivel up and the back of my neck ache.»

Jake through the whole book walks with the idea of returning to prison, that's what he fears most. «The Bitch» is a huge snowball, which runs directly on the main character, along with the reader. Jake makes one choice after another, he takes a step to the left and step to the right, but the snowball continues to bear down on him. All that is done, for the better. All that is not done, for the better. But all of that is done and is not done, for the worse. And isn’t it what life is if not all that you are doing and not doing?

«The Bitch» is a novel about that mistakes can not be corrected. Everything that you do to correct the mistakes is even bigger mistakes. Novel offers many plot turns, connected with Jake’s mistakes so «The Bitch» without thinking is probably the most unpredictable of all the novel I've read this year. Thus it is necessary to make allowance for the fact that the book is written in noir traditions, and this would mean that we know from the start, how it will all end.

In addition to his other qualities, «The Bitch» stands out its enviable authenticity. Jake and Walker think like real ex-cons, behave like real ex-cons. Les Edgerton himself had prison experience, he knows the mind of an ex-con far and wide. The difference between the characters, created as a hypothetical and based on actual experience, can be almost invisible, but it is felt.

Uncompromising finale completes this dark novel. Sometimes death is the way out.

Dead Money

Ray Banks
Dead Money

Blasted Heath, 2011

Alan Slater has got problems. He sells windows, but doesn’t give a damn about job lately. He cheates on his wife, and his marriage is about to fall apart. He has fun in bed with a young student, but shecan send him away any time. But the biggest problem for Alan is his mate Les Beale of uneven temper.

Beale is a gambler, a drinker and owner of a shitty personality. Alan’s colleague in sales office, Les no longer appears to work, all the time hangs in casinos and bars, getting drunk. Les has already hit the black list of most Manchester gambling venues, and it is not surprising, taking in account his temper: at the very beginning of the novel he breaks a nose of one of Chinese gamblers.

Alan is the only one who tolerates the company of his violent friend, but his patience is going to the end. Things at work and at home are deteriorating and then Les makes Alan’s life even worse: engages in illegal card game and kills one of the gamblers. Alan realizes that his past problems are nothing compared to those that had yet to be solved.

Ray Banks, in his re-written debut, follows old traditions of noir, making his protagonist a sales agent. Give your hero profession of a salesman, and be sure that this character just will get plenty of trouble. The worse things get for Alan, the more fun for the reader. Banks knows how to make a character unstable, cruel, selfish, dark, but at the same time attractive. And what is the sales agent if he is devoid of charm?

«Dead Money» is a story about the deadline in human life, if it exists. You temporize and put off major doings and solutions to the very limit, hoping that there is still time, but it turns out that it's too late - the deadline has long past.

Ray Banks is a breath of fresh air in British literature, stinking moldy stuff of police procedurals.

Act of Fear

Michael Collins
Act of Fear

Open Road Media/Mysterious Press e-book, 2012
(originally published in 1967)

«It began with the mugging of the cop.
Person or persons unknown jumped the patrolman in broad daylight on Water Street near the river, dragged him into an alley, and cleaned him out. No witnesses. This is the lower west side, the Chelsea district, where alley windows are boarded up and people do not see what they’re not sure they should see.
We all knew the cop: Patrolman Stettin. He’s a young cop, Stettin, not long on the force and still eager. We all heard that he felt so bad about being taken that he offered to quit. That shows how young he is. Sooner or later everyone is taken in this world. This time the mugger took it all: billy club, pistol, cuffs, summons book, watch, billfold, tie clip, shoes, and loose change. The mugger was good. Stettin never even saw a shadow, according to the report I heard.»

What a beginning! Everything really began with the mugging of a cop, and in a few days private detective Dan Fortune is hired by a young client. Pete Vitanza, college boy practicing as a mechanic, can’t find his best friend, Jo-Jo Olsen, also a mechanic who is obsessed with motors and interested in Vikings. The boy did not come for work, and parents say that he had gone somewhere, but Pete feels something’s wrong and pays detective fifty dollars (big money for a boy), that he’d find Jo-Jo. Fortune thinks Olsen certainly has gone with some girl and will soon appear, but to appease the conscience, decides to fulfill the received fifty dollars and ask around here and there. Fortune guesses that either the Olsen mugged the patrolman or saw who did it, that's why he went into running. Detective looks for a fugitive for three days and have already decided to quit the case, did not find any clues, as in the alley Fortune is attacked by a burly man who threatens that Fortune should forget about Jo-Jo and mind hos own business. The big man is the father of a runaway boy, and it finally convinces detective, that something is wrong with the Jo-Jo case. Later the local mafia is mixed in the case, the blood will spill, and apart from the search for Olsen Fortune will have to save his own life.

«Act of Fear» is the first book in the series about one-armed private detective Dan Fortune, and this book will knock you down. Friends, whom Fortune has got not much, called the PI Pirate: nickname stuck after Fortune in his youth had lost an arm. He does not like to tell the real story, which is nothing to be proud of, often inventing new and new stories about losing his arm. Detective though does not feel flawed: in the text, he never calls himself disabled, and others do not attach much importance to the one-armed (in the novel, there is one scene where a dumb girl begins to laugh at one hand). Despite the absence of the left hand, the detective did not allow himself to be an insult.

Fortune is a loner, a soul who cares for all the downtrodden. He walks down the mean streets of New York’s Chelsea, and his way is hard. He himself is a child of slums and musty apartment buildings, he traveled around the world, but now he feels in Chelsea at home. He wants people to strive for the best and go out of this troubled place, but he had already passed this stage, finally settling.

The plot of «Act of Fear» is replete with surprises, twists and revelations to the extent that would be enough for two dozen contemporary novels. For nearly 50 years the book is not outdated at all: people are still driven by greed, fear, self-interest and stupidity, honest and conscientious among them are one in a thousand.

Certainly one of the best PI novels of all time.

Benny Muscles In

Peter Rabe
Benny Muscles In

Prologue Books, 2012 (e-book)
(originally published in 1955)

Petty crook Benny with a funny last name Tapkow is tired of being a valet for his boss Pendleton. For seven years Benny was a driver for Pendleton, and now Benny wants to climb the criminal ladder. Only Pendleton does not want that, and when Benny shows independence, boss puts Benny into his place. Angered, Benny wants to get even with the boss, knowing his weakness, his daughter Pam, a wild thing, accustomed that her father in no way denies her wishes. Benny comes up with a plan of the kidnapping of Pam, enlisting the help of another crime boss, Big Al Alverato. But the kidnapping plan goes awry, and Benny plunges into the sea of problems.

The title «Benny Muscles In» was coined not by Rabe but his publisher. Initially the book was called «The Hook», and it is more appropriate to that history. On the surface this is a gangster novel, but in fact it is only the outer casing. «Benny Muscles In» is the story of a man who is struggling with his own emotions. To become a gangster, you need to disable feelings, and feelings are a drug, which is hard to get off. Emotions have ruined more than one gangster, Benny knows it. Hate, love, fear, and uncertainty – you need to get rid of it all. There must be only business. Struggle with feelings and emotions, that is at the heart of the book. Resort for dopers, bad kidnapping, escape from a former boss, inflating drug boss' daughter are all just Benny’s bad dream, his nightmare.

In this book there is so much sweat and dry tears, lick it, and you will feel the salt.

my son, my son

Douglas Galbraith
my son, my son: how one generation hurts the next

Harvill Secker, 2012

Before us a memoir of forty-something-year-old Scottish writer Douglas Galbraith, father of two children, who once returned home from a trip out of London, where the writer was doing research for his next novel, and found that his wife, a Japanese-born, stole two their sons and they had gone to his home in Japan, leaving no information.

Galbraith wrote his memoirs five years after the event - a little drama, as he calls it. Over these five years, the writer has never seen his sons. At the time of the abduction Satomi, the eldest son, was six years old, and the youngest, Makoto, was four. Brought up in a multicultural family, children initially could equally speak the father tongue, English, and the mother tongue, Japanese. Mother gradually began to dominate in the family, and the children became less and less using English. Strangely enough, but the author did not immediately reveals the chronology of abduction, the chronology of events prior to the abduction, when gradually became clear that Tomoko, the writer's wife, and he could not live together.

Galbraith monitors how the children gradually became the prerogative of women, not men, and how the child is still something of a property of his parents, not a full human being. However the law changes, no matter what the international covenants to protect children and their rights were not concluded, children will still remain dependent on adults, not fully independent. They can not choose for themselves, they can not vote, even though many of the children are more conscious than adults.

«My son, my son» is thepiercing memoirs of enormous power. In today's world, where everything seems to be focused on the safety and protection of a person and a child in particular, children will still remain dependent on adults, and sometimes even a toy in the hands of parents. Feelings and desires of the adult can go counter to the wishes of a child, can be harmful to a child, but no one asks a child. So one generation can destroy the life of another, even without considering the consequences.

The Yips

Nicola Barker
The Yips

Fourth Estate, 2012

«The Yips» is a strange book, which is hardly novel, but not a play either. Most of the text consists of dialogues, which actually describes the entire novel’s action. Between dialogs there isn’t any action, and the so-called space between the dialogues there is not too much. Heroes meet and discuss what happened to them in the past. Heroes are the main driving force of the novel, they are the clay from which the novel is built. The plot here rather is that adorns basis, minor detail.

At the heart of the book is a professional golfer Stuart Ransom. From his former glory remains a little, personal Ransom’s life tarnished his career. He has a wife and daughter, but he rarely sees them. In Scotland, Ransom is together with his manager Esther, a pregnant woman of Jamaican origin, which not very fluently speaks English. At the beginning of the novel Ransom is sitting at the bar in a provincial hotel, drinks and tells bartenders stories about golf and more. His mouth never closes. Bar is empty, and so he tells his stories only to girl-bartender Jen and her assistant Gene, who works in a bar part-time. Jen has recognized Ransom, and Gene has not.

Each of the characters in this book is so strange that the book is read not as something realistic, but rather as an urban fantasy. It is indeed a strange world, a wild story, overheard at the bar. And the whole story starts in the bar. Bar is a place to talk, and «The Yips» consists almost entirely of dialogue.

These dialogues are more than real, if that happens, but these are not bar or the market chatter, these are full, catchy in their reliability dialogues between living people. Once the book on 90 percent of the dialogue, faking the human speech would be fatal, the novel would have simply collapsed. From the speech of the characters we know who they are, know what they did. Silence is golden, but if nobody said anything, we would not have seen this wonderful novel.

«The Yips» does not spare the reader: Nicola Barker explains very little and certainly nothing brings on a platter. The first hundred pages, and even more, we have to read with eyes almost closed: from the situation is not clear on 70 percent. Gradually, from the subsequent dialog, we take out the information about the characters. This novel is complex but not overcomplex, requiring patience and the work of the mind.

The place of the novel is Scotland of 2006, but you feel like you are on Mars. Few can achieve the same effect.

Ancient Light

John Banville
Ancient Light

Viking, 2012

Actor Alexander Cleave is at decline of his career. He lives with his wife, Lydia, with whom they still grieve for their lost daughter Cassandra, who died ten years ago in the Italian resort of all places.

To once again remember what love is, Cleave writes a story about the greatest love of his life. His memories start with the day when he saw a woman's underwear, who rode on bycicle. He was not sure was it the same woman that he knew closely for the next five months. Alex was 15 years old at the time, still a schoolboy, with a very limited knowledge of the opposite sex. His best friend was Billy Gray, with whom they often walked, went to school together, and Alex in the morning waited at Grays home while Billy would prepare himself to go to school. One morning, Alex was waiting for Billy and decided to walk through the corridors of the Gray’s house. Grays have had a big house: Billy's father, Mr. Gray, kept optics shop, and the family lived quite comfortably, compared to many others. Passing by one of the rooms, Alex accidentally had seen Mrs. Gray, naked, looking at herself in the mirror. The boy held in memory this remarkable moment, until one day Mrs. Gray had given him a lift home after tennis game, and during a stop asked to kiss her. After the kiss, Alex doesn’t sees the woman who is older than him by 18 years, she was 33, for a week, thinking it was a random incident. But a week later, Alex is again in the house of Grays, and then in the basement laundry room, Mrs. Gray puts him the mattress and makes love to him. Since then the regular meetings between the boy and the mother of his best friend begin.

From the beginning there was a suspicion that the actor Cleave was an unreliable narrator. There can not be a person of such a memory. From the way he seemed to deliberately missed the point, copying them to the gaps in memory, one could guess that something with the narrator was wrong.

And it was, although it was impossible to predict the final, it was possible only to assume that the twist would be, and that sort of twists there are in every Banville’s novel. It is, of course, right to say that you need to read this novel not for the unexpected finale. «Ancient Light» is a dust photo, which the writer has restored so that it had become even better than before. Banville weaves verbal lace, as a poet choosing the right words, often those that you can see only in poetry.

Banville always stands out because he fills his books with ravishing descriptions, accurate details, such as the nail on the head, but his prose has plot. It moves like a snake with tattoos: We consider drawings of unearthly beauty and watch the graceful snake-story. The author has possession of colors, the language, and the canvas, the story, so they’re mixing – and we see a picture.

The novel is daring at times, but not one that is asking for trouble. The book is not about the provocative love, but about the rebirth of love and revival of the memory of love. The central plot-line there is the five months of passion (love?) between Alex and Mrs. Gray, and the subplot about the film and the actress is clearly secondary. This plot-line connects the «Ancient Light» with two other novels by Banville, which I have not read. But the past and present intersect here just with the theme of revival of love.

This book offers an elegant and refined reading and is hugely enjoybale.

Million Dollar Baby

F.X. Toole
Million Dollar Baby

Open Road Media ebook, 2012
(originally published in 2000)

Toole was a trainer and cut man, and boxing was his passion and his profession. This book brings together flawlessly written stories about boxing, often interspersed with crime. If we reject all sports comparisons (Toole wins by knockout; Toole’s prose has more power than a right hook; this collection deserves the belt of the champion of all boxing organizations and associations; throw the towel - Toole is the best), you can gather up the hundreds of laudatory statements not related to boxing praising something about that masterful collection of stories. There is not a bad story there, and I have not read it perfect short story collections, where all the stories would be close to ideal, for maybe two years.

The characters in his stories, on whose behalf the story goes, as a rule, are aging men, devoted their lives to boxing. They've seen everything, they know even more about the game (and for professionals boxing is not a game, it’s business), and for them the boxing remains honest sport. Yeas, there are the corrupt players, cunning trainers, greedy promoters, but it is important to be honest, whatever happens around. Moral of many stories lays on the surface, but on the surface and the face of a fighter lays – hit and you get it.

Toole essentially writes production prose: he can for half a story analyze fighting techniques, or training heavyweight, or stop blood on dissection, but you read it and do not feel any fatigue. On the contrary – you feel delight, as if you are initiated into a secret that very few people see. When finished with the mechanics, Toole goes to biology - the fights, and around them mant plots are construdcted. And it should be said that the plots are perfected to the smallest detail.

What is more notable about this collection: most stories are written in first person. The story is told by semi-literate people, and therefore they’re written in the style of a street, as I hear so, I write so (it is possible to say the stories are written in so-called black people talk-style, but the narrator is usually white). Often when such a style device is selected, it's annoying. A writer’s trying to be closer to reality, but in fact he makes it difficult to read. Semiliterate speech does not bring together an author and a character, on the contrary, as if the writer is laughing at retarded character. Toole’s street language is seamlessly woven into the narrative that says only one simple thing: most of the boxers are really uneducated and illiterate people - but they have different skills and dignity.

«Million Dollar Baby» is a first-rate collection. Perhaps the best thing I've read about boxing. And yes, it guaranteed kicks a tear.

Meltdown

Ben Elton
Meltdown

Bantam Press, 2009

The economic crisis of 2008 has hit the six university friends hard. Jimmy, Robbo, Lizzie, Henry, David and Rupert graduated from university in 1993, then got wives and husbands, children and homes, the high statuses and high-paying jobs. Friends, swimming in cash, were in the chocolate until the crisis hit. Elton tells how they all came to the situation they had come.

In the center of the novel are financial trader Jimmy and his wife Monica. Jimmy wanted to be a director and make documentary films, but once tried to be a trader at a major office and realized that it is rock’n’roll! Jimmy himself made the reality, not the reality made him, and money poured in. He began at once to get more money than his friends; every day bought new clothes because there was no time to go shopping. Jimmy gradually began to spend all the money on booze and drugs, and would have been in rehab, if not married to Monica, who worked in the catering company and distribute sandwiches to offices in the same building where Jimmy worked. They married, celebrated their honeymoon in the United States, Jimmy gave up bad habits. They had three children, and the eldest, Toby, at the time of the crisis has already been in a private school. The family did not count the money, giving thousands of pounds for charity, buying a five-story building with an elevator and a few cars, hiring an Australian nanny who served the entire family. Jimmy has invested in a new project, buying an entire street, where a construction of expensive homes had begun. But then the crisis came.

Writer Elton is from the category of professionals, which do not write badly. They are not great prose writers or prominent novelists, but they know their craft. They rarely jump bar genius, but rarely fall low.

«Meltdown» is strong work, ephemeral novel, but surely written with refined drama, with lots of details, flavored with tasty little words and expressions. Obviously, the book has been written on the topic of the day in the wake of the headlines. The financial crisis is behind us (and if it ever was), and the situation described in the novel is a little bit dated. However, the book reads voraciously and cardboard heroes here look more authentic than in many novels. All university friends from the novel are character types, characters from jokes and anecdotes, stilted models, giving the author the opportunity to build his attack on the different strata of British society. Part of the jokes and understanding the problem will be lost, because you need to know some aspects of British life, to understand political structure, economic situation etc etc. But even if you do not know the half of it the book would still be funny and sometimes very funny. Elton writes brilliant dialogue and tries his hand at satire, and at the sitcom, and at economic analyst.

Evolution of university friends is prominently: ordinary young men and women come to a crossroads, try themselves, climbing gradually higher and higher, turning into pretty nasty characters. People are losing their human form until the collapse occurs.

The characters of the book are unpleasant, but Jimmy is a success. At least from the type he turns into an ordinary person, who sees life around, life that can be fun.

Elton adds action in the politicial/economic satire. Death of a friend, the inspector, illegal trading, the fire in the house - it all fit into the plot, making it more refined.

The novel is hardly the top of the British prose, but this is a strong work, worth reading.