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Back Trouble
How do you get away with murder? Simon Cheese thinks he’s worked it out, as long as he sticks to the rules:
1. Don’t have a criminal record.
2. Don’t have a motive.
3. Under no circumstances kill someone you know.
(And don’t, whatever you do, let your wife know what you’re up to.)
With a little planning, it should be easy. Why, then, do things keep going wrong? Is it because of Simon’s vicious nemesis, the Weasel? Is it because of his foolish pursuit of the beautiful Lady Milston? Or is it simply because Simon’s not as clever as he thinks he is?
Or maybe you just shouldn’t try to kill someone when you’ve got a bad back.
1. Don’t have a criminal record.
2. Don’t have a motive.
3. Under no circumstances kill someone you know.
(And don’t, whatever you do, let your wife know what you’re up to.)
With a little planning, it should be easy. Why, then, do things keep going wrong? Is it because of Simon’s vicious nemesis, the Weasel? Is it because of his foolish pursuit of the beautiful Lady Milston? Or is it simply because Simon’s not as clever as he thinks he is?
Or maybe you just shouldn’t try to kill someone when you’ve got a bad back.
262 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 22, 2016
2 people want to read
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May 3, 2020
NB Some mild spoilers
This isn’t the type of book I normally read. I had read Kinnaird’s zombie thriller set in Ancient Rome ‘Dead Rome’ and enjoyed it, but the Ancient World isn’t really my thing. Then a friend recommended ‘Back Trouble’, Kinnaird’s contemporary novel. I decided to give it a go in the interests of broadening my reading horizons. I borrowed it from the Kindle library.
I was surprised to find I enjoyed it very much and read the whole novel over a weekend.
The story centres around Simon Cheese, a vintner who is fed up with life and cynical; he is so jaded the only thing he can think of to excite his day is to plan the murder of a stranger (and get away with it). Over the novel Simon crashes about, bumping into unpleasant low lifes, an upper crust lady of the manor and her nymphet of a teenage daughter, as well as (hilariously) creating a dummy victim he names Frankie, which he keeps in his shed and hits over the head every now and then.
In the spirit of Nabakov’s Humbert Humbert and Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, Simon Cheese is a deeply unpleasant and repellent character. It is a testament to the deftness of Kinnaird’s writing that Simon Cheese is imbued with such (flawed) humanity it is impossible to dismiss him as a one-dimensional pig. By the end I was almost starting to like him.
I was uncomfortable with Simon Cheese’s relationship with an 18-year-old woman when the character was in his 30’s, but I suspect that is how I was supposed to feel. What is done very well is the presentation of Cheese’s relationship with his wife, his dead brother, and the memories of his childhood. Kinnaird is well able to create solid and effective settings. From a fog-filled park at night-time to a beach on Guernsey, the reader finds their senses suffused with vivid details that linger in the memory.
Kinnaird’s writing is darkly funny, sharp, and capable of moments of real poetry. The description of a reluctant bowel movement as ‘forcing out a clay marrow’ had me laughing out loud. Another line writes of Simon Cheese inspecting his beaten-up body in the mirror: ‘I… spent ten minutes not recognising myself in the mirror, from every angle’.
Within the grim humour, despair, and cynicism are moment of great beauty, Kinnaird has the ability to craft striking and lovely descriptions. One of my favourites: ‘‘I notice she hasn’t zipped up her dress, and admire the luminous chevron of pale skin between the fold of fabric’. Gorgeous
I have read other books by Kinnaird including ‘Dead Rome’, but I think this is his best so far. I recommend it.
This isn’t the type of book I normally read. I had read Kinnaird’s zombie thriller set in Ancient Rome ‘Dead Rome’ and enjoyed it, but the Ancient World isn’t really my thing. Then a friend recommended ‘Back Trouble’, Kinnaird’s contemporary novel. I decided to give it a go in the interests of broadening my reading horizons. I borrowed it from the Kindle library.
I was surprised to find I enjoyed it very much and read the whole novel over a weekend.
The story centres around Simon Cheese, a vintner who is fed up with life and cynical; he is so jaded the only thing he can think of to excite his day is to plan the murder of a stranger (and get away with it). Over the novel Simon crashes about, bumping into unpleasant low lifes, an upper crust lady of the manor and her nymphet of a teenage daughter, as well as (hilariously) creating a dummy victim he names Frankie, which he keeps in his shed and hits over the head every now and then.
In the spirit of Nabakov’s Humbert Humbert and Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, Simon Cheese is a deeply unpleasant and repellent character. It is a testament to the deftness of Kinnaird’s writing that Simon Cheese is imbued with such (flawed) humanity it is impossible to dismiss him as a one-dimensional pig. By the end I was almost starting to like him.
I was uncomfortable with Simon Cheese’s relationship with an 18-year-old woman when the character was in his 30’s, but I suspect that is how I was supposed to feel. What is done very well is the presentation of Cheese’s relationship with his wife, his dead brother, and the memories of his childhood. Kinnaird is well able to create solid and effective settings. From a fog-filled park at night-time to a beach on Guernsey, the reader finds their senses suffused with vivid details that linger in the memory.
Kinnaird’s writing is darkly funny, sharp, and capable of moments of real poetry. The description of a reluctant bowel movement as ‘forcing out a clay marrow’ had me laughing out loud. Another line writes of Simon Cheese inspecting his beaten-up body in the mirror: ‘I… spent ten minutes not recognising myself in the mirror, from every angle’.
Within the grim humour, despair, and cynicism are moment of great beauty, Kinnaird has the ability to craft striking and lovely descriptions. One of my favourites: ‘‘I notice she hasn’t zipped up her dress, and admire the luminous chevron of pale skin between the fold of fabric’. Gorgeous
I have read other books by Kinnaird including ‘Dead Rome’, but I think this is his best so far. I recommend it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review