Title: Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin
Author: David Wailing
Publisher: David Wailing
Publication date: December 19th 2011
Source: I own a copy.
From Amazon:
DON’T NEED THE OTHER HALF ANY MORE?
TAKE THEM OUT.
So, you’ve hired a detective agency to prove your partner is cheating on you. But there’s no evidence to be found. Who you gonna call?
Me. I am the assassin. Your friend.
Anything your other half secretly desires, whatever makes her give in to temptation… that’s who I’ll become. Get close to her. Take her out. Bang. That’s what a relationship assassin does. Infidelity for hire!
But don’t think I’m heartless. I’m a professional. I’ve got Rules to protect my targets. Rules to stop them getting too close to the real me.
Rules that were blown away when three extraordinary women – the seductress, the celebrity, and the office girl – turned my world inside out.
And for a relationship assassin, having an other half was like shooting myself in the heart…
My Review
I don’t think I’ve ever been as surprised by a book as I was by this one.
I absolutely loved everything about it that I should have hated.
I should have hated the writing style. The author pretty much broke every rule in the book. Not for one minute did he follow any guidelines. Yet it only seemed to add to this book’s uniqueness, giving the MC a voice all of his own. And with all his different ‘faces’ so excellently formulated, I always knew exactly which persona was leading the show. Just brilliant.
I should have hated the character. If I’d met John or Scott or Andrew–whoever–in real life I’d have pegged him as a total w****r. Instead, I fell in love with this guy. Connected with him from the off. Hoped for him to pull stunt after stunt just so I could be privy to his antics. I wanted to know him.
But the book was so much more, so much deeper than something as simple as just those two points.
It was hilarious in all the right places. Dark in all the right places. Tender and downright emotional in all the right places.
It was full of some of the best characterisation I’ve seen in a while–full bodied, full history, full of life.
And damn, if one bothers to look beyond the sheer entertainment value this one has to offer, the psychology of it all is possibly what made me ‘feel’ for the MC, as well as want to just keep reading and reading.
Though I fear this might be a love/hate book. All I can say is don’t take this one at face value. Because it really does offer so much more.
My rating:
Julie, thanks once again for such a superb review, and for posting to your blog. I’m dead chuffed that you enjoyed it so much!
My pleasure, David. I just hope it results in more people hearing about it for you.