The Big Kiss - Hardcover

Huggins, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559704098 ISBN 13: 9781559704090

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 1997

Synopsis

Steve Cork's life is in a downward spiral as his marriage ends, his best friend wrecks his car, his business faces ruination, and his mind begins to slip, but when his life takes one more turn for the worse, Steve realizes he has to get a hold on something.

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Reviews

Don't get discouraged when Chapter 3 of this antic first novel begins with a flashback within a flashback; from there on in, the rest of the story roars along like the London mail. In outline it's simple enough: Two days after hearing suspicious noises coming from the flat of Puffa Group's new hired gun, Alan Denton--noises that make him wonder if, well, Alan hasn't perhaps raped and murdered Claire Vogel, the sweet young thing who went inside with him and hasn't been seen since--Puffa marketing chief Steve Cork, who's just been pleading with Alan not to fire Steve's co-founder, fashion designer Tony Mold, finds that slick Alan has eased him out instead. Revenge for his all-too-apt suspicions about Alan, Steve assumes, and it's an easy conclusion to leap to. As the tale unfolds, though, you have to wonder how far you can trust Steve's paranoid perceptions, especially when he keeps going off the lithium prescribed for him after he smashed the mirror in his bedroom, thinking the image behind the glass was a doppelg„nger assaulting his ex-model wife Liz. It's no wonder that Liz wants less and less to do with Steve; that the police harumph away his suspicions of Alan; and that even Kate Parker, the psychiatrist who takes him to her therapeutic bed, doesn't believe a word he's saying. Huggins's staccato, sexed-up delivery sounds like Patricia Highsmith on uppers and without sleep. But how can you resist a narrator who describes Prince Charles as ``The Man Who Would Be Tampon''? -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Londoner Steve Cort believes that one of his business partners has raped and murdered a much younger college girl. Before he can prove anything, though, the partner finesses him out of the business, and Steve, already stressed by marriage difficulties, experiences mental meltdown. Recovery brings time for investigating his suspicions about the partner, wrangling with his wife and messing around with his psychiatrist. This debut novel, first published in England, boasts an exciting blend of psychological angst, morbid humor, and illusory reality. For most collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1559704098
• ISBN 13: 9781559704090
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240