Dead Birds
John Milne
No Exit pbk, 202 pgs, £6.99

Alive and Kicking
John Milne
No Exit pbk, 251 pgs

Review by Gerald Houghton (1999)

Part of No Exit's equal opportunities policy: they publish greats like James Sallis, Charles Willeford, Daniel Woodrell and Edward Bunker, but have no problem with seeing 'writers' like cyberpunk sad-lad Jack O'Connell, pretentious surf-twerp Kem Nunn or Brit-crime plodder John Milne into print as well. There's twelve years separating these two, the reissued 1986 Dead Birds and the spanking new Alive & Kicking, but you'd be hard pushed to slip a razorblade between them in terms of quality. Let me tell you that our hero is a disabled P.I. called Jimmy Jenner and that he used to be a copper. And that now he hangs out with the kind of hard nuts and brassy tarts you haven't seen since The Sweeney shut up shop. Some compare this witless, pedestrian slog to Chandler. That clown prince of British crime writing, Nicholas Blincoe, is nearer the mark, and if that excites your tastebuds then, frankly, you deserve one another.