Ace Vegas repo man Zef DeGroot is sent to Hawaii to collect a vintage Harley-Davidson from a legendary dope-dealer and karaoke killer the locals call Donny Punani. But an easy snatch for a ninja of Zef's mad sklils becomes a nightmarish farce when he finds monstrous crooks, crooked cops and the lust-mad gods of paradise are all conspiring to push his shit in.
From the twisted tourist traps of Honolulu to the savage tropical backwaters of Hana, Zef DeGroot will have to run, fight, and pillbug for his life through an aloha gauntlet of cannibal thugs and date-rape drugs, of psycho TV shrinks and surfing leper hijinx. And that's just to find the bike...to get away with it and go home, he's going to have to go through the ghost-god son of the King of All Sharks.
MAHALO.
Review
Repo Shark is a strange beast; at once a crime novel, a bizarro adventure, and a deconstruction-turned-homage to Hawaii. Goodfellow gives the reader a seemingly endless collection of outlandish characters and then has them interact in progressively odder, and funnier, situations while simultaneously lifting the veil of Hawaii's kitschy, tourist-friendly atmosphere. There are beaches and surfers here, but also poverty, gangs, drugs, and old beliefs that refuse to disappear in the face of the white man's invasion.If this was a novella, Goodfellow's ability to maintain superb pacing and his knack for dragging the reader along by the neck while Zef jumps, runs, steals, crashes, and shoots his way around Hawaii would merit a passing mention. Here, however, the author does all of it splendidly well for almost 300 pages and while continuously adding characters to the intense, violent, stoned mix. Also, the action sequences have a cinematic feel to them and the dialogue is a hilarious blend of Zef's confident idiocy and local lingo. Despite getting so much right, the thing that pushes this narrative into must-read territory is the writing itself, a debauched, relentlessly witty prose that manages to be engaging even when describing settings, which turns Goodfellow into the hyperactive, foulmouthed antithesis of the great classic Russian novelists.To say no one writes like Goodfellow is both accurate and an understatement. Whether he's writing bizarro or horror, his work is always exciting, unique, and delivered with a prose that moves forward at breakneck speed. With Repo Shark , his first crime novel, he has taken pulp aesthetics in a new, much faster, weirder, and wonderfully grimier direction.- Gabino Iglesias, Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Description:
NOTHING EVER LEAVES AN ISLAND.
Ace Vegas repo man Zef DeGroot is sent to Hawaii to collect a vintage Harley-Davidson from a legendary dope-dealer and karaoke killer the locals call Donny Punani. But an easy snatch for a ninja of Zef's mad sklils becomes a nightmarish farce when he finds monstrous crooks, crooked cops and the lust-mad gods of paradise are all conspiring to push his shit in.
From the twisted tourist traps of Honolulu to the savage tropical backwaters of Hana, Zef DeGroot will have to run, fight, and pillbug for his life through an aloha gauntlet of cannibal thugs and date-rape drugs, of psycho TV shrinks and surfing leper hijinx. And that's just to find the bike...to get away with it and go home, he's going to have to go through the ghost-god son of the King of All Sharks.
MAHALO.
Review
Repo Shark is a strange beast; at once a crime novel, a bizarro adventure, and a deconstruction-turned-homage to Hawaii. Goodfellow gives the reader a seemingly endless collection of outlandish characters and then has them interact in progressively odder, and funnier, situations while simultaneously lifting the veil of Hawaii's kitschy, tourist-friendly atmosphere. There are beaches and surfers here, but also poverty, gangs, drugs, and old beliefs that refuse to disappear in the face of the white man's invasion.If this was a novella, Goodfellow's ability to maintain superb pacing and his knack for dragging the reader along by the neck while Zef jumps, runs, steals, crashes, and shoots his way around Hawaii would merit a passing mention. Here, however, the author does all of it splendidly well for almost 300 pages and while continuously adding characters to the intense, violent, stoned mix. Also, the action sequences have a cinematic feel to them and the dialogue is a hilarious blend of Zef's confident idiocy and local lingo. Despite getting so much right, the thing that pushes this narrative into must-read territory is the writing itself, a debauched, relentlessly witty prose that manages to be engaging even when describing settings, which turns Goodfellow into the hyperactive, foulmouthed antithesis of the great classic Russian novelists.To say no one writes like Goodfellow is both accurate and an understatement. Whether he's writing bizarro or horror, his work is always exciting, unique, and delivered with a prose that moves forward at breakneck speed. With Repo Shark , his first crime novel, he has taken pulp aesthetics in a new, much faster, weirder, and wonderfully grimier direction.- Gabino Iglesias, Vol. 1 Brooklyn