9. Colin Bateman:

 

Maid of the Mist

written: 1999

(250 pages)

 

read in November 2013

verdict: **** LIKE

 

This book was a complete change of register from the last one, story-wise as well as language-wise. The first sentence "The Artist Formerly Known as Pongo was off his head on coke again" says it all right from the start. We don't know any other books by Colin Bateman (1962), but if this is his usual writing style, we wouldn't mind reading another one soon.

 

The only bad part of the novel was the cover, where one can yet again wonder whether the people responsible for the cover design have actually read the book. The tough-looking Indian girl with the firearm is not in the least bit like the protagonist, and the pizza parlour is actually only mentioned once in a tiny scene, which hardly qualifies for making the front cover. Besides, the pizzeria didn't even offer food, it was only a front for a back-alley whore house.

 

The story is set in a small Canadian tourist town right on the Niagara Falls, and it is hard to put it into any category. My best attempt would be part crime-story, part surrealistic British humour, with a dash of low-life romance thrown in. The language is very casual, verging on the flippant and in some parts below the belt, but always funny. There are the two main protagonists: a cop whose private life has gone downhill and whose professional career is risking to go the same way, and a beautiful woman fished out of the waters who claims to be a reincarnation of an Indian princess, but turns out to be somebody completely different. They get entangled in a crazy plot which involves a group of part-time Indian weekend warriors, a local pimp, some more cops, and, to round it all off, the entire crème de la crème of the international drug mafia, who happen to have a congress at just this precise time and place. And last but not least the afore mentioned AFKaP (not to be confused with Prince, even though that might have been the author's intention), whose ties to the mafia become crucial for the outcome of the plot.

 

Seeing the characters of the book, and the way they go about stumbling through the plot, one wonders how on earth some of them even manage to survive the book. Language, plot and characters all reminded us of British books like Bruce Dickinson's Lord Iffy, Rupert Everett's Hello Darling are you working? or Eric Idle's Hello Sailor. Since we adore this kind of British humour, it is no wonder we devoured the novel with extreme pleasure. It was simply unputdownable. So yes, it's a definite LIKE.