Easy Meat

by John Harvey

Book Overview

"Easy Meat" is crime fiction so close to the bone it is almost like reading the newspapers--except that John Harvey's artistry with words and concern for character bring their ugly events and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805041486
• ISBN13: 9780805041484
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Easy Meat

In the eighth Charlie Resnick novel, the DI is facing a troubling case: That of a young boy, Nicky Snapes, who, during a home robbery, beat an elderly woman nearly to death as she was trying to protect her equally elderly husband. Nicky is put into care while charges against him are being weighed, and when things take a decided turn for the worse, the results are more tragic than Charlie or the reader could have imagined. Snapes is the youngest of three being raised by his single-parent mother, and his choice of friends includes fourteen-year-old Martin, who "didn't seem to know what risk meant," at his tender age having already escaped from the facility where he had been incarcerated and promptly getting sent back there after his next criminal offense. Their squalid lives are realistically and rather depressingly portrayed. There is a romantic interest introduced for Charlie in the person of Hannah Campbell, Nicky's teacher, who has her pocketbook stolen by Nicky shortly before the robbery of the senior citizens, but who remains sympathetic to the boy despite everything. Returning are the cops with whom Charlie works, including Lynn Kellogg, still recovering from her kidnapping over a year ago. Ill-concealed misogyny, racism and general prejudice are evident in the CID [as in the `outside world']. And then one of their own is brutally murdered. Resnick is a wonderful protagonist: a lover of good jazz and cats [both immediately endearing him to this reader], the former evidenced by the names given to the latter, jazz legends all: Dizzy, Miles, Pepper and Bud [who he calls `eternally young and stupid'], and despite Charlie's statements that "he had no immediate family, unless you included the cats and he did not. Cats were cats and people people and Resnick knew the difference, he was clear on that . . . Resnick reached out a hand to stroke the animal's glossy fur, but Dizzy turned away from his touch and, tail raised, presented Resnick with a fine view of his backside as he ran along the rail and then sprang down towards the door, anxious to be fed. A neat encapsulation, Resnick thought, of man's relationship with cats." He sits at his desk one morning with "dancing the last of several things occupying his mind. For no clear reason he could discern, unless it were the coffee in the cup that he was holding the words to an old Bessie Smith blues came filtering to the surface, something about waking up cold in hand," this last presaging the author's most recent novel in the series, appropriately enough entitled "Cold in Hand." Beyond such charming moments, the author evokes visceral scenes of violence, as well as the occasional ones of tenderness. He makes clear why he says, near the last page, that "there's nothing people won't do to one another, if the circumstances are right. No dreadful thing." John Harvey is one of the best British writers on the scene today, and this series as good as any one can find. The book is hig

John Harvey Strikes Again

John Harvey is arguably one of the crime writers today. Easy Meat is another in his Charlie Resnick series. Each one, it seems, is better than the previous ones. Harvey's stories deal not only with crimes, but also current issues in society, such as racism, sexual harrassment on the job, infidelity, child pronography and others. Many authors chose to ignore these subjects. Not so with John Harvey. In this installment, a youth is accused of murdering an older woman. Convicted of the crime, he is later sent to a youth dtention centre, where he is found hanging in a room. He was only 15 years old. Resnick has to deal with the psyche of the boy and those who drove him to his death. The book is well written, yet at the same tim difficult to read because it does not seem like fiction at all, rather it is true life. It is a pity the Harvey has not written a Resnick novel in a few years. We can only hope that changes.

amazing

This was a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed it - it was fast paced and very real. This was actually the first book I read in the series and it encouraged me to read the rest of them ( although I still think this is the best one ). It's just a shame that there will be no more. It's a british book, written in a very british way about british urban life - if people think its depressing, they're simply missing the point.

A brilliant write pens an unforgettable crime novel

Nicky Snape was barely fifteen, but already has a résumé filled with misdemeanors and minor crimes. He has even stolen money from his own mother. Today is a typical day in the life of the young English hoodlum. Nicky makes the rounds and steals a purse from Hannah Campbell, later selling her credit cards. He breaks into the home of Eric and Doris Netherfield. Eric sees an intruder enter his bedroom and goes after the culprit with a piece of railing. He strikes the intruder, Nicky, on the shoulder, but eventually loses the bar. Nicky knocks Eric down, demanding money. As Eric holds his chest, Doris comes over to attend to her man. Nicky picks up the bar and splits open Doris' head. The police arrest Nicky for murder. Two days later, the teenager hangs himself in his cell. To Inspector Charles Resnick, something is not quite right about the lad's death. He begins to investigate what happened at the juvenile detention home where Nicky allegedly hung himself. Charles looks into this case, while the English city rocks from other vicious crimes. EASY MEAT is a British urban police procedural that is so gritty, it will make American readers reconsider the English cozy. Nicky, who could be any teenager, is a great character and the story line is painfully brilliant. However, it is Charles, surrounded by a growing tide of violence, who still finds love amidst this vicious sea of decadence, who makes John Harvey's novel one of the best police procedurals of the year. Harriet Klausner