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Bloodstained Kings
Tim Willocks
Manufacturer: Arrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Action & Adventure | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0099459116

Average customer rating:

Southern Gothic.
For the confused:
Fascinating most of the time
Question to those who have read it...
Read a Movie

Bloodstained Kings
Tim Willocks
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0679450092
Release Date: 1998-01-20

Amazon.com

Tim Willocks is a British doctor and psychiatrist who runs a drug detox clinic in London and writes literate thrillers and screenplays in his spare time. He also loves colorful American locales: his Green River Rising took place inside a Texas prison, and Bloodstained Kings stretches across a gaudy Southern landscape from New Orleans to rural Georgia. When a corrupt cop dies, a demented woman who keeps her husband locked in a cage and a doctor haunted by guilty secrets are among those who rush to search the dead man's files for information that could destroy them. Readers who enjoy the absolute blackness of James Ellroy's books should feel right at home with Willocks.

Book Description

Tim Willocks's first book, Green River Rising, earned the kind of reviews that are rarely accorded to most so-called literary thrillers. This remarkable debut was hailed for its rich, powerful writing as well as its dramatic, page-turning suspense. The New York Times Book Review called it "beautifully vivid" and "triumphantly realized," while People called it "as fine a thriller as one could ask for."

The author's much-anticipated second novel is as powerful and ambitious as its predecessor. Set in New Orleans and the rural South, it is the story of a chain of cataclysmic events let loose by the murder of Clarence Jefferson, a legendary lawman who has gathered a cache of evidence that could imprison corrupt politicians in five states. His last act, it appears, was to hand-pick two people as the unlucky heirs of his potentially explosive evidence files. The pair must either dispose of them as fast as they can or--at considerable risk to themselves--deliver the files to the authorities. Lenna Parillaud and Dr. Cicero Grimes, Jefferson's "beneficiaries," have never met. Lenna, a millionaire businesswoman, has been racked by grief and rage over the loss of her daughter. Dr. Grimes is a clinically depressed psychiatrist. Though both have burdens enough of their own, they are swept up into this story of southern violence, passion, and vengeance, the likes of which perhaps only the readers of Willocks's previous novel can imagine.

Compared by critics to Norman Mailer, James Ellroy, Stephen Hunter, and Andrew Vachss, Willocks offers a unique amalgam of gritty realism and something more--a depth and intensity that is seldom achieved in popular fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Southern Gothic........2001-08-23

Bigger than life and meaner than a pitbull, New Orleans Police Lt. Clarence Jefferson has spent his career collecting dirt on the rich and powerful. Always wary, Jefferson has accumulated the incriminating evidence in two huge suitcases as insurance. One day, Jefferson disappears and, after several months, is presumed dead. He exerts his influence from beyond the grave, however, writing to his lover, the sultry heiress Lena Parillaud, and to the last man who saw him alive, Dr. Cicero Grimes. The letters provide clues to the whereabouts of the suitcases, triggering a desperate search which eventually involves the feisty WWII veteran George Grimes (Cicero's father), seedy attorney Rufus Atwater, Lena's estranged husband Filmore Faroe (recently escaped after 13 years from a prison his loving wife had made for him), and Ella MacDaniels, a young woman who unknowingly stands at the center of the mystery. Before book's end, alliances are made and broken, bullets fly, and several players lose their lives.

Willocks delivers a riveting novel, a southern gothic replete with buckets of blood and philosophical musings. Willocks knows his terrain as well as James Ellroy knows L.A., and is equally unafraid to expose its dark underbelly. Frightening and hypnotic, grotesque and suspenseful, Bloodstained Kings is one of those books that grabs you and doesn't let go--Willocks provides memorable, three dimensionsal characters, sharp dialogue and rich atmosphere, weaving his protagonists' disparate lives togther with enviable skill. An unusual, unforgettable novel, a worthy successor to his previous effort, the gritty Green River Rising.

For the confused:.......2001-01-31

Just a quick point of information: Bloodstained Kings is Tim Willocks' third novel, with Green River Rising his second. The first is Bad City Blues and deals with the main characters in Bloodstained Kings i.e. Dr Grimes and Clarence Jefferson, and describes situations alluded to in Bloodstained Kings.

You can get it at amazon.co.uk and personally, I would advise reading it before this, to save confusion.

It is also a superb read, dealing with the same emotions and decisions that "strong men" have to struggle against as this book, and as a primer to Bloodstained Kings is excellent.

On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to read Bloodstained Kings without having read Bad City Blues, and still thoroughly enjoy it. Go ahead, buy this book!!

Fascinating most of the time.......2000-11-09

As others have said, not up to par with Green River, but still a fascinating page-turner with a literary edge. I'd love to read more from Willocks, but it looks like he's not going to be cranking them out too quickly.

I, too, was a bit mystified by the sketchy explanations of the relationship between Grimes and Jefferson. But it didn't bother me. I like a book that lets me draw some of my own conclusions. I don't need to be spoonfed all the details.

Question to those who have read it..........1999-06-24

What exactly happened between Cicero Grimes and Clarence Jefferson?

SPOILERS AHEAD...

It really isn't explained, I mean, Willocks writes that Jefferson tortured Grimes, but why? And the part where Grimes "kills" Jefferson, what was happening there? This is key part in the novel, and it is never really explained.

Please email me if you have an answer... JMMPRODS@worldnet.att.net

Read a Movie.......1999-06-22

The beginning was brooding and exciting. A guy is locked up in a bunker. The middle is long, and larely predictable, filled with backstory. The end is a long, action sequence.

SPOILER UP AHEAD--

I have one question, if Filmore Faroe has been "dead" for 13 years, wouldn't everything be in Leanna's name? Filmore really wouldn't have any power. Once Leanna escaped, she could have struck back with all of her power and might but didn't. Kinda puzzling.

Bloodstained Kings
Average customer rating:
Bloodstained Kings
Tim Willocks
Manufacturer: TRAFALGAR SQUARE +
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SI8NCG

Average customer rating:
Bloodstained Kings
Tim Willocks
Manufacturer: Arrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OHFKR2

Average customer rating:
Bloodstained Kings
TIM WILLOCKS
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXEMJO

Average customer rating:
Bloodstained Kings
Tim Willocks
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NZS392

BLOODSTAINED KINGS.
Average customer rating:
BLOODSTAINED KINGS.
Tim. Willocks
Manufacturer: Random House,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NOYQ0I

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