@*&%!%^%$ Tony Black!

Sure, this Scottish writer's novel Gutted is funny and violent, apt to remind readers of Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor books, though more packed with incident than those (and though the novel's one explicit Bruen tribute I've found is to the Brant and Roberts novels).

Sure, the book is packed with Edinburgh patter (unless Black is taking the piss and titillating we foreigners with made-up slang) and dark observations about the underside of the city's bright, tourist-attracting facade (though the protagonist, Gus Dury, admits a soft spot for some of the attractions.)

No, why I really can't stand Black is that I'll never be able to write a novel set in an incredible shrinking newspaper without being haunted by the thought that Black describes such a milieu better than I ever could:

"The newsroom had been decimated. I remembered the days when this place hummed with activity. Now it was a sorry reflection of its former glory. The staff numbers must have been cut by fifty per cent, padded out a bit by a few kids chasing work experience. I shook my head." 

and

"The paper used to be based in one of the city’s old baronial buildings. They sold it, turned it into a hotel. The office is now housed in one of Edinburgh’s many chucked-up-in-five-minutes jobs. I hear if times get tough the building can be quickly converted into a shopping mall. Forget about the workers that spend all their waking lives in there – best to keep those options open. The way newspapers were going since the web came along, I could see a Portakabin on the horizon." 

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Bruen's "Blitz" on screen

I was apprehensive when I heard Ken Bruen's 2002 novel Blitz was being made into a movie. The book's centerpiece, Southeast London police officer Tom Brant, is a feral, funny wild man, maybe Bruen's best creation, and I thought it would take a gifted actor and daring filmmakers to manage the transfer to a new medium, if the transfer were possible at all.

The movie, directed by Elliott Lester, released last year, and featuring Jason Statham as Brant and the excellent Paddy Considine as Porter Nash, could have been worse. It drops at least one major subplot and adds a narrative element that's not obtrusive but not necessary either.  It softens Brant's character, notably in the opening scene. The pruning results in a character a bit more believable but also a bit more conventional, a bit less maniacal, and a bit less funny, and a world not quite as dark as the novel's.

The movie also tones down Nash's reaction to the flak he gets from fellow officers because he's gay.  In the movie, he's a tough, righteous cop. In the book, he's a tough, righteous cop with jaw-droppingly funny chutzpah. And that's the movie, really: a milder version of a highly spicy book. Oh, and Bruen has a cameo role — as a priest.

(I discuss the appeal of the Brant and Roberts novels here.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012