Spaghetti Junction: A Napoleon Clancy Book, Volume 1

by James Dargan

SPAGHETTI JUNCTION, A NAPOLEON CLANCY BOOK, VOLUME 1 It's two men against a whole world of criminality. They're Batman and Robin without the masks, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza minus the windmills, Holmes and Watson with not a clue in sight. Meet Napoleon 'Nappy' Clancy - ex Birmingham bobbie and Cleveland cop and now a private detective, trying to make ends meet - along with his 'sidekick', ex-Dublin guard, Barry Fanning. After months of inactivity and desperately in need of cash to pay credit card bills and alimony for his two kids in America, Clancy gets a phone call from a beautiful blonde, Clare Jameson, who needs someone to find her missing boyfriend, Roger Diamond, manager of a city centre nightclub. Clancy, naturally, is up for the job. We follow him and the reluctant-to-get-involved Fanning as they enter the Birmingham underworld, full of dangerous people with dangerous intentions, until the trail leads the two private eyes to London and a strip club which holds a dark secret. Will Clancy and Fanning solve the case and raise their reputations as private investigators? 'Spaghetti Junction' is a black comedy/crime thriller, and the first volume in a series of Napoleon Clancy books.

142 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2013

About the author

Writer, Raconteur, Blogger

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Reviews

[Susan Swiderski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was... different. I should probably give it two and a half stars, but let's round it up to three, shall we?

I was looking for some good humor in this book, but I found the humor to be rather juvenile... you know, the sort of thing that makes teenage boys guffaw while elbowing each other in the ribs. Not that I didn't chuckle a time or two, mind you, but I'm not exactly world renown for my sophisticated sense of humor. This is probably going to sound a bit strange, but the dialogue in this book is too true-to-life. I mean, yeah, a couple of drinking buddies probably would talk to each other that way, especially while in the process of pickling their livers, but that doesn't mean their plodding blather makes for scintillating reading material. The story line itself is okay. A bit predictable, but interesting enough. The characters are more like caricatures, but at least, some of them are likable.

All-in-all, it's an okay read. Short, and good for a chuckle or two. Would I read another book by this author? Possibly. Especially if I'm feeling particularly juvenile and up for a couple cheap laughs.

[L · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a real disappointment--no Batman and Robin here, just a couple of drunk buddies. Oh, there is some snappy dialogue, to be sure. But clever takes precedence over content and you realize it isn't going anywhere. So, ok, it's tedious. But then, as the buddies are closing in on the bad guys, suddenly the reader is assaulted by racial slurs and sexual abuse of a young victim. Who needs this?

[Pat M · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story a lot. Didn’t care for the “c” word too much hence the 3 stars. The good guy of the story tries to do right and that is why I read the whole story.

[Gerard Cappa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brummie birds, blokes in Jags and The Villa about to sack their Scottish manager - standard fare for reluctant hero Napoleon Clancy and Baz the Dub. Nappy Clancy would be a top rate Private Detective if cases could be solved from the barstool in his mate Baz's pub. On this occasion the not so inconsequential matter of Birmingham gangsters and human trafficking boost Nappy out of the pub and into action, or as close to it as he can manage.
In the end, the hero comes good - but it is the crisp dialogue between Nappy and Baz that makes this a winner.

[Ted Tayler · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Fell short of the mark"

Somewhere in this pairing of Napoleon Clancy and Barry Fanning there's the kernel of a good idea for a series. Unfortunately, it got lost along the way in this one. There were a few comedy moments that I enjoyed, but long telephone conversations between Nappy and Barry or Nappy and Clare that went nowhere fast in progressing the skimpy plot just ended up annoying me.