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FLINCH
by Robert Ferrigno
Vintage Books, January 2003
320 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 1400030242


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When Jimmy Gage, investigative reporter and film critic for the tabloid 'SLAP' receives correspondence from someone calling himself 'The Eggman' and claiming to be responsible for six seemingly unrelated deaths, Jimmy makes a nuisance of himself with the authorities until his serial killer theories are branded a hoax. Taunted by the Eggman, disbelieved by the police, burned out with the stress, Jimmy ups and escapes to Europe. Now, a year or so later, he's back in LA. His girlfriend has married his brother and he's lost his job, his apartment and the respect of most people who ever had any time for him. The one thing he does still have is a burning conviction that the Eggman is real. And when photos of the victims turn up after all this time, Jimmy knows that there's no more running he can do. Wiser, tougher and more cynical after his previous experience, this time he's going to have to see it through.

This is a book about a creepy serial killer - but it's also much more than that. It's about people playing games with each other, and how innocent competition can escalate into deadly rivalry. It's about families and the conflicting feelings that you can have for someone you're supposed to love, just because they're related to you. It's about two very different brothers - one impulsive, passionate, and brave, but also human and flawed; the other successful, rich, and respected, but also cold and calculating. Love and hate, guilt and innocence, justice and retribution.

Flinch lifts the glitzy, glamorous lid off LA and exposes the sleazy subcultures that exist underneath the facade. The book is peopled with pumped-up wrestlers, vicious thugs, junkies, people on the edges of society. There are lots of lonely people in this book, spinning around in their own isolated worlds like hamsters on a wheel - never getting anywhere, and sometimes, not even knowing that there's anywhere better to get. But there are also a lot of good people - people who help Jimmy just because they can, not because they want anything for themselves. No one in this book is all good or all bad. Jimmy Gage himself is no hero, and even some of the bad guys have their nicer sides. Other than Jimmy and one or two others, few of the characters are greatly developed, and a couple of them have a very 'cartoony' feel about them. Despite that, they're not stereotypes, and they're very memorable.

Flinch is dark, but never bleak. There's a lot of humour and, at the beginning it feels quite a light, sunny book but the plot, and the humour, get blacker and more warped. By the end my carefree smile had turned into a nervous grin. An excellent book, one which dragged me in, and refused to spit me back out.

--

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Reviewed by Donna Moore, January 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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