Last Year’s Man

Tommy Bennett, the narrator of this violent, darkly funny short novel from Brazill (A Case of Noir), is nearing 60 and the end of his unlikely career as a killer-for-hire. After two jobs go bad and a couple of crooked cops pressure him for his services in London, he decides it’s time to retreat to Seatown, his birthplace, in northeast England. After getting off the train, Tommy, who has a weakness for drink, enters the first pub he sees, the Tap and Spile (“inevitably nicknamed the Spinal Tap back in the bad-old-good-old days”), where he witnesses an assault in the men’s room. When the police show up, he polishes off his pint and leaves. Outside the pub, he’s nearly run over by his grown daughter, Tamsin, on her motor bike. Tommy’s happy reunion with Tamsin leads to his reconnecting with less savory people from his past, including psychopathic gangster Drella and Drella’s drug-dealing sidekick, Sniffy, who enlist him in a scheme that could be his last. In lieu of a plot, Brazill offers a series of amusing episodes filled with breezy banter in this offbeat slice of British noir. [em](June) [/em]