Cocaine Nights

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The further I got into this the more I became less interested in the identity of the killer/killers responsible for the deaths of the Hollingers and their maid, and more drawn to the boring comatosed lives hidden away behind the curtains at the Residencia. Better to go deep, I think, and start with something uncompromising like The Unlimited Dream Company. The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. Ballard keeps the dialogue snappy and true; however, the leisurely pace, the comings and goings of this Porsche and that BMW, all the swimming and tennis practice sap the novel of any tension.

It involves kinky goings-on in a wealthy British resort community in Gibraltar, where there's not much to do but suntan, get high and play sex games.Certainly, Joseph Conrad also lurks around the edges of any Ballard novel, sailing his ghost ship from one chapter to the next. This behaviour is necessary to set Charles on his mission to solve the mystery himself, and thus instigate the novel’s action, but it is a huge contrivance: this never feels organic to the world or circumstances that Ballard has created. About a quarter of the way through, it seems to question whether an investigative process can ever determine the truth, especially when everybody, even the police, seems to be deliberately withholding it from you.

I remembered the disagreeable Guardia Civil at Gibraltar and speculated that the fire had been started by a deranged Spanish policeman protesting at Britain’s occupation of the Rock. When Charles finally manages to visit Frank at his Spanish prison he discovers, to his bewilderment and consternation, that Frank is going to plead guilty. The Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar (which should surely be Estrella del Mar) is a retirement community for rich British expats, who do the things that these people do – tennis, boating, parties, putting on plays.And so it is that Charles puts off opportunities to visit his brother for months on end, and slowly comes to the realisation that he doesn’t want to or need to. FIRST EDITION, super octavo, black heavy boards, silver gilt lettering to spine, 329pp, VG+ (sl bruising to spine extrems, light to moderate tanning to page edges, spine sl cocked) in d/w, VG+ (light creasing to edges, light chafing to covers, sl tanning to edges of flaps). Posing as a whodunnit, or perhaps more accurately a whydunnit, Cocaine Nights is a tale awash with drugs, violence, pornography, and the odd psychiatrist. Moreover, Charles is a dud; the charge inherent in one of his first sentences, ""My real luggage is rarely locked, its catches eager to be sprung,"" is never borne out by his actions or the relationship between him and his brother. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions.

This will be the first of three reviews that center around a world that has lost its moral and ethical compass. The resort had turned its back on mass tourism, and there were none of the skyscraper blocks that rose from the water’s edge at Benalmadena and Torremolinos. Its beginning is really nice and you get the feeling that this is going to be such an amazing story and wow-how-much-fun-you're-gonna-get.

Whilst humorous, cool and controlled and loved by the ladies, there was something altogether terrifying about him.

After five people die in an unexplained house fire, club manager Frank Prentice pleads guilty-but nobody believes him, least of all the police. The white-hulled craft seemed almost spectral in the dusk, a fleet waiting to sail on a phantom wind. They’re prepared to invest in the woman’s pleasure so that they can collect an even bigger dividend for themselves.

however, I don't think this sibling shuffle is enough to ruin the overall story, which, of course, has nothing to do with solving the crime and everything to do with JG's ideas about a little deviance being the spice of life. At once an engrossing mystery and a novel of ideas, ‘Cocaine Nights’ is a stunningly original work, a vision of a society coming to terms with a life of almost unlimited leisure. And the setting, so it turns out, is not the ’70s, but the ’90s, so it doesn’t really have anything to do with the intriguing, chilling debauchery of the disco culture of the ’70s.