Eric Bear has it all: a successful career, a beautiful wife, a blissful home. He knows he's been lucky; a while back, his life revolved around drugs, gambling, a gang of stuffed-animal thugs, and notorious crime boss Nicholas Dove.
But the past isn't as far away as Eric had hoped. Rumors are swirling that Dove is on the Death List and that he wants Eric to save him. If Eric fails to act, his beloved wife, Emma Rabbit, will be torn apart, limb by limb.
With a nod to the best of noir and the wisest of allegories, and interlaced with greed and gangsters, Amberville depicts an alternate world that mirrors our own realities and moral concerns, and reminds us of the inextricable link between good and evil.
Once readers get past the idea of murderous, debauched stuffed animals, they will find an entertaining noir thriller in Amberville, filled with hidden identities, shifting loyalties, surprising twists, and a gritty, hard-edged tone worthy of Chandler or Hammett. The odd nature of the residents of Mollison Town doesn't impede Davys's deft characterizations, and unraveling the secrets of the city is half the fun of reading this imaginative novel. Though Amberville delves into "Orwellian satire" (Chicago Sun-Times) toward the end, with the chief target religion, Davys is careful never to let the plot lag. Aside from a rather clumsy translation, Amberville is a "delightful mystery-thriller" (San Francisco Chronicle). Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
Description:
What does it mean to be bad?
Eric Bear has it all: a successful career, a beautiful wife, a blissful home. He knows he's been lucky; a while back, his life revolved around drugs, gambling, a gang of stuffed-animal thugs, and notorious crime boss Nicholas Dove.
But the past isn't as far away as Eric had hoped. Rumors are swirling that Dove is on the Death List and that he wants Eric to save him. If Eric fails to act, his beloved wife, Emma Rabbit, will be torn apart, limb by limb.
With a nod to the best of noir and the wisest of allegories, and interlaced with greed and gangsters, Amberville depicts an alternate world that mirrors our own realities and moral concerns, and reminds us of the inextricable link between good and evil.
From Publishers Weekly
Those with an appetite for the bizarre will best appreciate the pseudonymous Davys's offbeat debut, set entirely in a town inhabited by living, breathing stuffed animals. Everyone in Mollisan Town fears the Death List, the legendary roster of residents designated for pickup by the Chauffeurs, from whose red pickup truck no one returns. When word that mob boss Nicholas Dove (yes, a stuffed bird) has been placed on the list, he coerces Eric Bear into helping him escape his fate. Bear, who's put his shady past behind him and turned to a career in advertising, goes in search of answers. The backbiting and betrayal would certainly be at home in a conventional hard-boiled crime novel, but some readers may feel the premise's novelty wears thin after a while. Passages of clunky translation don't help ("From being a suspect rat who through her mere presence transformed the individuals around the conference table to normalcy, here she was in her right element"). (Feb. 24)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Once readers get past the idea of murderous, debauched stuffed animals, they will find an entertaining noir thriller in Amberville, filled with hidden identities, shifting loyalties, surprising twists, and a gritty, hard-edged tone worthy of Chandler or Hammett. The odd nature of the residents of Mollison Town doesn't impede Davys's deft characterizations, and unraveling the secrets of the city is half the fun of reading this imaginative novel. Though Amberville delves into "Orwellian satire" (Chicago Sun-Times) toward the end, with the chief target religion, Davys is careful never to let the plot lag. Aside from a rather clumsy translation, Amberville is a "delightful mystery-thriller" (San Francisco Chronicle).
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC