Acid Casuals

by Nicholas Blincoe

Overview

Sex, drugs, and disco: just a day in the life of Manchester’s deadliest hitwoman

Estela has come to Manchester on a business trip. But not just any old business trip: she’s here to kill her ex-boss, the notorious gangster John Burgess.

When Estela’s previous life as Paul Sorel comes to light, however, things start to get sticky. Plunged into a world of dodgy bouncers, bent coppers, weird DJs and Moss Side gangsters, Estela must use every skill at her disposal to get out of Manchester alive…

Brimming with amphetamine energy and razor-sharp prose, this psychedelic romp through the gritty heart of 90s Manchester has earned a cult reputation as a modern crime classic

‘A classic crime thriller, re-routed to the gang-blighted nightclub-driven environs of post-acid house Manchester’ Select
‘The best debut crime novel of the year… blackly comic and highly inventive’ Daily Telegraph
‘British noir for the Pulp Fiction generation’ Observer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910859445
Publisher:	Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	04/04/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	496 KB

About the Author

Nicholas Blincoe is an author, critic and screenwriter. His many novels include the highly-acclaimed Manchester Slingback, which won the CWA Silver Dagger award in 1998. Born in Rochdale, he attended the University of Warwick, where he completed a PhD in contemporary European philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Fresh from her latest sex-change operation in Brazil—she's coming down the last mile now—Estela Santos is sent back to her old stomping grounds by her drug-trade boss to assassinate Manchester businessman/crime lord John Burgess. Word is that when Estela was Paul Sorel, she (or he) ran out on Burgess after Burgess tried to rape him, avenging himself with thousands of amphetamine-laced pounds Burgess had laundered through clubs like the Gravity and the WARP. So if Burgess recognizes Estela, he'll at least be delighted to see her, right? Estela's life gets more complicated on page one, when she unwittingly picks up a Burgess travel agent named John Caxton, a.k.a. Yen, for a little after- hours fun. Next morning, Yen's decamped with Estela's Beretta and estrogen pills, leaving every indication besides that he knows she's after Burgess. Can things get any worse for our heroine? Well, the next time she sees Yen at the Gravity, he's dead, shot with her Beretta, and the shooter, his girlfriend Theresa O'Donnell, is only too happy to blame it all on the mysterious South American woman who practically ran over Tréz getting to the body. Meantime, Burgess is still riding high; his gang is splintering into well-armed factions that blast each other as readily as you'd ask the time; and an awful lot of people are looking for Estela.

One of the liveliest (and noisiest) of recent British bad- boy debuts races to a climax that the dialogue memorably summarizes: "Is anyone dead?" "Yeah, obviously, totally."

Kirkus Reviews