Here’s the situation:

Nick is not a criminal. He's a loner. He's also big, and he uses it. He’s seen a few things in his time and he’s starting to get slightly sick of it all, a tad jaded. But there’s a lot he hasn’t seen, both out there in the world and inside his own head. There’s a lot he doesn’t even know about.

This situation is about to change.

Things start to happen. New things. They say they come in threes and they're not wrong. In Nick's case it's

        A woman

        A rash of expensive (chemical) habits

        A need for cash

And then there's the fourth thing, just to prove the rule:

        A plan

Attempting to ape the style of the book under review is a cheap, tawdry, and desperate trick. And I’ll try not to do it again. Suffice to say Bruen has a style that is very much his own. It has stuck with him and evolved through umpteen subsequent novels and it still comes across fresh as a settling pint of Guinness. But Rilke On Black is where it all started.

And there’s a lot more here than style.

Going back to my poor attempt at Bruenlisting above, what you have there is the bare bones of a classic American noir novel from the glory days. And that's what you have here, plot-wise. But this ain't LA or Chicago. This is grimy old South London. And it's the 90s (which I've yet to hear heralded as "days of glory". Maybe one day eh?)

In Rilke On Black Bruen takes the tried and tested noir format and turns it into something that is, quite simply, another thing entirely. I will tell you what that thing is in a minute. Alchemy is a tough one to grapple with and I’ll need to get my bearings first. While I do that, here’s a bit more about the plot:

There’s a kidnapping. Of Baldwin, a diminutive, poetry-loving Brixton night-club impresario. It’s all the new woman’s idea. Her name is Lisa and she is, shall we say, hard to resist. Nick’s not sure if it’s a good idea or not, but he’s on a ride with her and he’s not about to put the brakes on. Aided by friendly neighbourhood sociopath Dex, they stash their quarry in the basement and start the ransom ball rolling. Meanwhile, Nick starts to fall apart.

And it’s in Nick’s account of his own disintegration that this hitherto cracking crime novel begins to transcend expectations.

I have heard a lot of debate about what constitutes noir, in its literary carnation. And to be straight with you, I’m sick of it. If you feel noir in your bones, you don’t need to define it. Bruen feels it. Demonstratively so. And he injects it into this novel like a drug dealer pumping smack into the arm of a weak-willed debutante with a death-wish. A little at first, just to see how it goes. Then a bit more, because it goes just fine.

Then full-on. No brakes.

Here are Nick’s thoughts as he readies his cellar for the guest-to-be:

A thick chain fixed to the wall to be attached to Baldwin’s ankle. The prisoner of Clapham. Christ it made me want to puke even to look at it. To chain a human being, something in you has to be extinguished. You douse a light that can never be re-lit.

And out it goes. But at least he had a choice.

What follows is the proverbial one-way ticket to hell. Like those noir classics, things go awry and loyalties are shattered. Weaknesses are exposed and true colours come shining through. And all the while something else is happening:

Nick learning about himself.

It would be reductive and more than a little absurd to say that the big bruiser "discovers himself" through the writings of the poet Rilke. But that’s where it starts. Baldwin copes with his captivity in style, refusing to panic, taking every opportunity to pick at his captor’s psyche by reciting Rilke at the top of his voice. For better or worse, legendary Bohemian poet Rilke provides the commentary to Nick’s downward journey. Nick can’t quite get the drift of it but he can’t shake it loose either. The words get into his head and stay there.

Towards the end of the book, many bridges burnt behind him, Nick visits a bookshop:

I said, "I was looking for something on Rilke.

"You mean Roethke... or possibly Rimbaud."

I caught her arm.

"Hey, I’ve had a day you wouldn’t believe, OK, now trust me on this. I know Rilke like you’ll never know fuckin’ manners. So what y’say, want us to go look?"

We did and found. I bought two volumes. Then the off-license and a bottle of bourbon.

Plan A derailing fast, the search for self goes on. Whisky, books, CDs... it’s in there somewhere. Read, listen, drink and you will find... if not the answers then perhaps a Plan B?

Rilke On Black caused a stir when first published by Serpent’s Tail in 1996. Reading it today, it has lost none of its impact. Hard, elegant, and compelling. Like those old American novels from the glory days, this one will go down as a classic.

Copyright© 2004 Charlie Williams

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CHARLIE WILLIAMS was born and raised in England, and educated in Wales and France. His short stories have appeared in The Third Alternative, Time Out Neonlit, and other publications. His debut novel - Deadfolk - is out now from Serpent's Tail.