Tag: Base Cowboys

Base Cowboys by Mark Farrer: Enjoyable Scottish Crime Novellas about a wandering antihero

Base CowboysBase Cowboys

by Mark Farrer
Series: Cullen, #1

Kindle Edition, 356 pg.
Funny Business Press, 2019

Read: July 22, 2019

This is a collection of three novellas featuring Farrer’s character of Cullen in and around a city near the Scottish border — Dirty Barry, Bronchial Billy and Pale Ale Rider. As you can probably guess from the plays on Eastwood film titles, we’re supposed to be thinking of an Eastwood-hero type, wandering into the midst of someone else’s (or several someone elses) life and setting things right, stopping a crime, etc. Also, from the play in the titles, they’re of a lighter tone — they’re described as comic, I didn’t particularly find them that, but they are clearly written for the fun side of Crime Fiction, not the serious, dark, or brooding side.

Dirty Barry tells the story of the world’s sleaziest dentist. For sport, he has affairs/one night stands/flings with as many married patients as he can — blackmailing them to continue as he sees fit. Until one day, Cullen walks in with some tooth pain. We meet Big Paul here (more on him later), and three other characters who more than make up for the sleaze brought in by Barry.

Bronchial Billy is about a boorish octagenarian would-be-slumlord (if he had more than one house he rented, he might qualify). He annoys Cullen one night due to his drunken revelry, which ends up toppling a series of dominoes — Billy’s family, hobbies, and livelihood will never be the same. Big Paul’s around for some of this and has a connection to one of Billy’s tenants.

Pale Ale Rider is probably my favorite of the three. It’s the story of a teenage petty criminal with the eyes of a serial killer, the young woman who puts him on a trajectory toward more serious crime and the small brewery (and some employees thereof) that unwittingly provide him a home base and the means for his crimes.

The central character, who really isn’t around as much as you might expect is Cullen, an ex-police detective anti-hero type. Homeless by choice, and living entirely off-the-grid (and unaware of much happening on the grid), he wanders around the country righting wrongs and living life on his own terms (like TV’s David Banner — without the gamma-radiation-induced temper issue). I don’t particularly mind or dislike him, I just don’t think he’s that interesting — I see where he’s supposed to be, but he never clicked for me. I think I need a little more of/about him before I could be hooked.

On the other hand, there’s one other character who shows up in each story that I did find pretty interesting, and would happily read more of — Big Paul/Beep (a nickname we see explained repeatedly, but not used) is a laid-back carpenter, with a very casual attitude toward life, money and punctuality. He’s not the most educated of men, but later shows some signs of effort to change that. He’s just a fun character, someone you’d probably like to hang out with.

Almost every other character is pretty well-drawn and fleshed-out. Yeah, we learn a bit too much about them in info dumps, but Farrer does a good job of building on those descriptions and rounding out the characters in the following pages. From the titular characters to their victims, family or friends these characters are what make the novellas compelling and interesting. They’re the real stars of the various novellas and the reason to keep reading.

Aside from a pretty non-compelling protagonist, my major complaint is the amount of crass descriptions and depictions of sex. Yes, sex is very important to one plot and is a powerful motivator in the others, and thankfully we’re not given a detailed description of the act. But it’s too pervasive for me, particularly the way it’s talked about (by both characters and narration). Call me a prude, or whatever, but it just struck me as distasteful.

These are fast, off-beat, readable works full of compelling characters (if you ignore the protagonist, who isn’t bad, he’s just not as interesting as the rest) — this book/these novellas are just the thing for a quick, refreshing read — not a full meal, but a hearty snack. I do recommend reading them separately, I think they’d be more enjoyable not read back-to-back-to-back, but that’s tough to say with any degree of certainty. Give them a shot.

—–

3 Stars

LetsReadIndie Reading Challenge 2019 Cloak & Dagger Challenge


My thanks to damppebbles blog tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including a copy of the collection) they provided.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Base Cowboys by Mark Farrer

Today I welcome the Book Tour for the entertaining Base Cowboys by Mark Farrer. Along with this spotlight post, I’ll be giving my take on the novel here in a bit. But before I get to talking about the book, let’s start by learning a little about this here book, okay?


Book Details:

Book Title: Base Cowboys by Mark Farrer
Release date: July 22, 2019
Format: Paperback/Ebook
Length: 356 pages

Book Blurb:

BASE COWBOYS is a comic crime trilogy set in the Scottish Borders. It is the sixth laugh-out-loud book in the CULLEN series written by Borders author Mark Farrer and will appeal to readers of Christopher Brookmyre, Carl Hiaasen, Nick Spalding or Tom Sharpe. The book tells the stories of three amoral ne’er-do-wells, their unfortunate and accidental intrusion into Cullen’s life, and the imaginative ways he finds of ensuring (his) justice is done:

Dirty Barry
The first casualty of adultery is… the tooth!

Barry Sullivan is a sordid dentist who resorts to blackmail to keep his string of married women in line. But now Cullen has toothache – and a very different interpretation of the dental code of practice.

Bronchial Billy
Meet Billy – the fastest gun in a vest.

Billy is a geriatric slum landlord desperate to win first prize in a Country & Western gunfight competition. But his trigger-happy birthday celebrations provoke Cullen, and now Billy must pay. Will he meet his High Noon at the Grand Ole Opry or will he go out with a bang? Whatever happens, there’s sure to be fireworks.

Pale Ale Rider
There’s trouble brewing…

Tyler is a teenage tearaway with the eyes of a serial killer. But when he decides to rob Big Paul’s local pub, he gets more than he bargained for. Will Tyler lose his bottle, or just get smashed? Cullen thinks he’s seen dead eyes like those before, and now he has a plan: he’s not bitter, he’s just a little twisted.

About Mark Farrer:

Mark FarrerMark Farrer is the author of six comedy novels and novellas, each set in the Scottish Borders with a distinctive Scottish backdrop – whether salmon farming, textile mills, Rugby Sevens or the Scottish criminal justice system. His books are multi-stranded storylines involving larger-than-life characters, whose plans and incompetence inevitably exceed their wits. All feature an itinerant loner, Cullen, who lives off the grid and finds himself inadvertently drawn into someone’s crazy scheme, only for his own (very individual) sense of right and wrong to be offended. That’s generally when things start to go wronger.

Mark Farrer’s Social Media:

Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Website ~ Amazon Author Page

Purchase Links:

Amazon UK ~ Amazon US


My thanks to damppebbles blog tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including a copy of the collection) they provided.

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