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FICTION
Nice Girls Finish Last Sparkle Hayter (No Exit £6.99)
Tips Budget Jones on the scales and steals nor Iags'
479'
Goodbye, (Jeri Hello, Robin If you need a sassy redhead who's brrmful of Girl Power, look no further than the heroine of Sparkle Hayter's delrc roust funny crime caper
Robin lludson, n i‘er foll()\.‘.‘-up to What's A Girl Gotta Do), rs still langurshrng in a tabloid lV reports unrt that makes The National Engurrer‘ seem like the New York Times Approac hing 40 and strll single, she has fashioned a Positive Mental Attitude to improve her karma, but that (hanges when her gynaecologrst rs murdered and someone starts shooting at her TV statron's ant hormen
The fren/red hypocrisy of TV news combines With the utter lunacy of New York lrfe as Robin bumbles through more near-death situations 'Jerry Lewrs's nutty professor in the body of Rita Hayworth' :s her own desc rrptron, and it's an appealing and entertaining combination Wise-(racking one-liners glide from her lip-glossed mouth as the book scurrres along to rts conclusion lAMl
Nosferatu In Love Jim Shepard (Faber & Faber £9.99)
Hammer's Technicolor blood-lettrngs have staked their place in Dracula movre history, but one enduring varnprric image rs guaranteed to chill the marrow and set the spine a- trnglrng FW Mur'nau's 1922 frlrn Nosferatu featuring Max Schrec k as the subhuman Count has sunk rts fangs into our collective memory and Simply won’t let go
Behrnd the camera, FW Murnau was, if anything, a more complex and misunderstood character than hrs most notorious undead subject Jim Shepard’s fictionalrsecl biography of the legendary film director traces Mur‘nau from hrs Berlin Unrversrty days, through
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Breakfast On Pluto Patrick lrlcCabe (Picador £iS.99)
than? o «W Patric/e
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on. Pluto
Owe the ’sprt of DaVId C assrdy' with a penchant for (ans of Harp lager, Patric k 'Pussy' Braden leaves hrs native land of Ireland to take up lrfe in London's Krlbur'n Here, Pussy takes or‘ the /0s and rts popular music partrc ularly Dusty Springfield and fashron's aberrations, particularly hot pants Heavrng hrs way from one fantasy to another, by way of becoming an ‘escort', Pussy's lrfe rs one long negotiation With wayward (harac ters and unfortunate slip-ups Patric k (W Cabe's voice is drstrnc trve The author of the recently-filmed Butcher Boy, M( Cabe delivers punt hy lrnes which tow a sense of desparr rn their wake Pussy rs one of lrfe’s honest souls whose sparky rnrnd sees humour but also aches with want for more Penned in the form of a self-appraisal of Pussy's lrfe and times to hrs psychiatrist Dr Terence, Breakfast On P/uto manages to hold your attention if not always fully engage your imagination (SB)
Lord Of The Barnyard:
Killing The Fatted Calf
And Arming The Aware In The Corn Belt
Tristan Egolf (Picador £12.99)
The first thing you'll noti(e is the title Then the book racket an X-r‘ayed /ornt):e effect Then the author's name Once you turn ".10 the book 'tseif all 410 pages of it you read the first sentence before realising it is 22 lrnes long One piece of advice set aside a fortnight and enioy one of the most tiring and rewardrr‘g readrng experiences of the year And all from a 27 year-old making his debut with a work regected by 70 US publishers
John Kaltenbr'unner r‘eburlds and protects his family home from the lot a Continued over page
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