Mystery In Spiderville

(Paperback)

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Description

'A fascinating debut which combines madcap surrealism, film-noir and eroticism' - Guardian Alongside the names of James Hadley Chase and Erle Stanley Gardner we must now add that of John Hartley Williams - though Mystery in Spiderville is no run-of-the-mill hard-boiled thriller. The decor is by Dali, the plot is a mixture of Breton and Burroughs, and the main character - the protean and unkillable Spider Rembrandt - has six toes, sleeps in a grave and dreams of congress with the pert and playful Reedy Buttons. Sucked into the vortex of Spider's philandering mind is a narrator - sometimes Spider's adversary, sometimes his victim - who lies upon a bed brooding on the absence of a nameless, brown-haired woman. He, too, is protean- full of passionate longings and homicidal tendencies. A surrealist film-noir that blends the forensic with the erotic, the seedy penny-dreadful and the lyric prose-poem, Mystery in Spiderville is one of the strangest, strongest and most arresting fictional debuts in years.

Reviews

Surrealist film noir that blends the forensic with the erotic * Laura Wilson *
If there's been something missing in your life ever since William Burroughs went to the great needle exchange in the sky, then perhaps John Hartley Williams is the author for you * Sunday Herald *
Nodding as much to William Burroughs as to Raymond Chandler * Scotsman *
Probably the first crime novel to ally forensic procedures with lyrical poetry * Guardian *
This is the evil twin of the novel: a form locked in the literary basement that deserves to see the light of day * The Times *

Author Bio

John Hartley Williams has published nine poetry collections, including Spending Time with Walter and, most recently, Blues (2004). He co-edited Teach Yourself Writing Poetry and won the Arvon International Poetry Competition in 1983. He teaches English at the Free University of Berlin, where he has been since 1976.