Synopsis:
The eccentric owner of a ’90s underground London cocktail bar has a unique and disturbing way of keeping an eye on everything and everyone, then disappearing those who don’t behave. Famous politicians, glamorous actresses, and international stars are all dying to get in… and to get out.
Review:
Gemma Amor’s “Happy Hour,” is a bloody good time, a salt-rimmed, blood-splattered, pulpy cocktail of excess, comeuppance, liquid courage and lethal consequences that readers will down garnish and all in a single, breathless gulp. Anything but neat, Amor’s latest is a sleazy, gritty bloodbath on the rocks that will make your stomach churn and wallop you with the killer VHS equivalent of a barstool to the face. With The Dirty Minx’s lounge lizard, crushed velvet optics and abattoir ethics, this camp and boozy post-last-orders Sweeney Todd-esque bad boy has all of the slick, savage, irresistibly nasty fun that readers have come to expect from the series and more…Amor has a heavy pouring hand. Impossible not to enjoy and unwise to attempt sober, belly up to the bar and prepare for the splash zone when “Happy Hour,” releases October 20th.
The Dirty Minx is not your average London boozer, local watering hole or frequented dive. That would partly be because of how exclusive the guest list is. It’s where celebrities come pretending they don’t want to be snapped by the paparazzi on their way out, where politicians wash away their consciences with top-shelf booze, moguls and models and producers order the good stuff before disappearing into bathroom cubicles to snort the better stuff. It’s also a little different because of its proprietor. Brian certainly keeps an eye on what is going on in his place, he’s very sentimental about it, but also has some macabre methods of making sure that misbehaving clientele get what’s coming to them.
As intoxicating a time as “Happy Hour,” is, it’s written with sobriety. Those who perch on the stools across from the bar in The Dirty Minx are, almost without exception, spectacularly loathsome people. That almost has to be the case for us as readers to be raising a glass as opposed to clutching our pearls when such patrons leave the premises in lots of tiny little pieces as opposed to just slightly tipsy. Each grisly comeuppance and arterial spray reads like a macabre receipt for years of greed, vanity and exploitation. I would wager that it’s no coincidence that this queue for poetic justice is populated exclusively by the rich, famous and obscenely entitled. “Happy Hour,” arrives at a moment where public faith in our politicians is (understandably) low and an economy in which celebrity culture and extreme wealth feel increasingly poor taste; the gulf between the privileged and everybody else has never been more visible. The Dirty Minx being a place where money and status can get you in, but not necessarily out again, makes this novella even more cathartic than it would otherwise be. Cheers to that!
Amor’s writing is, no surprise, as beautiful as it is brutal- smooth as whiskey one second and bringing the bottle down on somebody’s head the next. Her character work is every bit as intoxicating, Brian not some mindless, frenzied killer but a frenzied killer one can get behind. Amor writes him a backstory which explains if not justifies the revenge he proceeds to serve on ice, as well as a combustible and reckless romance which brought to mind Bonnie and Clyde. Oh, and on the flipside, the recognisably awful characters we are meant to resent, we most certainly do.
Wit and gore, muddled with righteous fury, shaken vigorously, “Happy Hour,” will scorch the back of your throat, put hairs on your chest and leave a strange metallic tang on your tongue. It’s an excellent way to spend a couple of hours so mind your tab, watch your drink and bottoms up.
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