It's too much bodily fluids for BookTok to like
In honor of A.B. Patterson’s newest release coming out Harry’s Grail, I have to share what bad assery “The Bad Boy Of Australian Crime Fiction” brings to the table. If you’re down to clown for that X-Rated fantasy that Sam Spade never was but you always wanted him to be, Harry Kenmare is your man. A real Pussy Detective, and one that doesn’t need a mush mouth mumble of ebonics to tell his tale, either.
I’ve reviewed this book at least twice; all these years later it still holds its own against anybody writing in the crime fiction police genre. Harry Kenmare is the type of character in a style of book cancel culturalists would absolutely love to bury, ban, and bitch about. In other words, a grown ass adult book.
Harry Kenmare, PI At Your Service tells the sordid lush life tale of Harry Kenmare, our namesake protagonist. This hard luck bloke is a typical (not stereotypical) washed up sorry sack of shit who can barely do day work looking for dead washed up chicks with cum in their hair etching a minimum wage. A former cop stuck in a lot of self destruction, he can’t keep himself off the sauce or off of prostitutes long enough to stay on the force, so he’s a working man private dick that definitely ain’t Shaft with the chicks. Still, if that means his dick has to get wet to get a good lead or two from a perp that looks like they haven’t washed their pussy for two years so be it. Washed up cops can’t be choosey when they leave the lotion at home.
When we meet him on the first page, the former cop turned alcoholic private investigator is down on his luck, blitzing through shit jobs like a bootleg bounty hunter looking for the forgotten and throwed away that he himself doesn’t give a shit about. His sidekick is the rot gut piss on sale at the liquor store that is one of his motivations of getting a job well done. With such a stellar work life, his personal life starts blending in since his fondness for broke down bitches that time wasn’t kind to keeps blurring the professional lines. Kenmare’s potentially diseased infested crusty nuts are normally in a sling when the case gives his desperation a hard on.
At Your Service takes us through seven of the most shitty cases playing on Kenmare’s desperate decisions he does for rent money. Of course most of the people knocking on his door are rich enough to kick up payment but don’t because their assholes. Kenmare’s smart enough to know when he’s been had but the vices he overindulges got him bathing in the gutter with the lowest common denominators of distractions so that goes over his head. He’s a Humphrey Bogart type of man that makes the trigger crowd cringe, dripping with crotch scratching masculinity with enough anger to kick a hissing possum. He’s a mean, ugly ass anything but a sex machine drunk who is constantly set up because he can’t seem to put the bottle or the bitches down. He’s not only about that life, he’s living THAT LIFE chewing him up and spitting him out in the gutter. For that alone I love it. It’s very rare in this day and age to find a strong heterosexual Private Investigator that has chutzpah.
What sets Kenmare apart from other PI detective stories is the fact he is the epitome of zero fucks given. He’s not speculative or transgressive and proud of it – Kenmare’s raunchy, X-Rated, unapologetic, live, and most definitely politically uncensored. He’ll fuck a whore and not even use a rubber if track marks he can count on her arm might reduce the price. He’ll take a uptight uptown gig from a rich prick drowning in political corruption as long as the check clears for his perks and he can fuck the lead bitch in the case regardless of whether or not he can solve it. The rotten bastard makes it plain from case number one he has no loyalty to no one, not even himself, and he’s comfortable about it since Australia for the most part has beat the hell out of him so badly he couldn’t give less than two shits after White Castle what happens to himself or his case.
It’s just a low down, dirty, underpaid, shit ass job. Another crummy day getting fucked up the ass with no Vaseline with the steel toe boot of Australia’s bad policies and politics affecting his next bottle of booze and his next client. Trust me, ever case brings to Kenmare a typical shit, no good, terrible ass day with bootleg Mad Max type biker boys amped up on shit can beer piss all over him and the one good suit he’s probably kept clean with wet naps and Febreze. Ammonia stains never come out, especially after shit can beer. Sure he can get deeper and scrounge up a feeling or two, just as long as the rot gut liquor and the cheap pieces of ass make it tolerable to keep doing.
It’s a delicious, raw, and often comical read. Almost makes you feel dirty being a voyeur in need of a bath to how fucked up this man’s life goes on a regular basis. The only thing people might not like reading it is the Aussie slang. Even I have to admit it’s like watching Pootie Tang on subtitles a bit. Just like that flick it does take a minute to figure out a few words here and there but it won’t take away from enjoying the most fucked up private investigator on the beat proving that when life gives you lemons don’t wait on the vodka.
This book was released quietly almost a decade ago, but became infamous because the gatekeepers of the indie crime fiction community couldn’t shut the fuck up giving AB shit for his spirited description of cum stains on the brains of one of the hoes found dead with, egad, NO TRIGGER WARNING. That entire faux outrage on social media made me check the novel out and it didn’t disappoint. This is a real crime who done it, not a Scooby Doo very bad after school special so if reading about come on a dead body is against your crime writing sensitivities then go skeet in a sock and slide the fuck on off my page for being a fucking prude.
It’s crime. Cum stains matter.
Read this book. A.B. Patterson is changing the game and bringing the old school P.I. into the 21st Century in a reality that is more akin to real life and not Hollywood fantasy.
You can check out his work on his official website here:
http://www.abpatterson.com.au/