Tooth & Nail

Spencer's riveting slice of London crime life, reminiscent of Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction, pulsates with a pervasive nastiness even if it never quite coheres. Darren Friend is a minor-league criminal with a privileged girlfriend and a dubious business interest in replacement windows who likes hitting people and making easy money. A woman client slow to pay her window bill is beaten into a coma. Her husband, a higher class of criminal, and his business partner, Reggie, whose sexual preference is near-death orgasms, can both help Darren reach the big time with a scheme to severely reduce the value of prime London real estate with random acts of vandalism and arson. The non-linear narrative is littered with acts of death and destruction, peppered with rock music trivia (the author is a professional musician) and features a sprawling cast of low-grade hoodlums who all copulate at a frenzied pace and are mostly indistinguishable from one another. Emphasizing form over substance, this flawed novel delivers a fast, frenzied jolt of pure yobbish energy from start to finish. (Sept.)