In Review

21 November 2008 22:11 BST

The Trophy Taker by Lee Weeks

Published by Avon, out now, paperback, 498 pages, £6.99.

In a nutshell...

A killer cuts close to the bone

What's it all about?

Detective Johnny Mann has been in search of justice ever since the death of his father and on his first case on a Hong Kong beat his commitment to retribution is all that he can call upon to catch the perpetrator of what soon become a series of very personal murders. When bodies of mutilated young western girls start turning up - dismembered, thawed and with organs missing - Mann is forced to scour the depths of Hong Kong's perverse underworld in a search for a killer in a fetid and corrupt city where anything can be bought behind closed doors.

Who's it by?

First-time novelist Lee Weeks. Having left school with one O Level and a notebook, Weeks travelled the world for seven years before returning to England to raise a family. During those 15 years she took on a host of jobs including cocktail waitress, model, English teacher, chef and personal trainer and gained a diversity of experience that has imbued her with the dexterity to colour a slew of characters convincingly, whether upstanding, morally destitute or plain sadistic. Her personal experiences with the Hong Kong sex trade and drug addiction give her work a legitimacy that is uncommon of many novels in the genre.

The Trophy Taker has seen her writing compared to that of James Patterson and with a follow up entitled The Trafficked expected on shelves soon, Weeks certainly seems intent on becoming as prolific.

As an example...

"At that second and fifteen metres out of Mann's reach, one of the restaurant workers became ever more brave with the metal rod he'd found amid the rubble. He dug a little deeper into the stretched plastic than he intended. The black bag ripped from one to the other and spewed up its rotting treasure in volcanic style. The restaurant worker screamed and jumped back several feet, where he stopped, frozen to the spot and staring wide-eyed as a wet curly haired head, carried by a viscous stream of melted body fat and water, slid onto his foot.

Mann moved forward to get a better look: wide-jawed, big-mouthed, perfectly even teeth ...

S**t! An American, that's all we need!"

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

Disregarding hyperbole, one apt comparison that can be drawn between Weeks and Patterson is that her work is much more likely to see a TV adaptation than a big-screen release, although the likelihood for Weeks is still comparatively smaller. The Hong Kong setting adds a lot to this novel and would be the main point of attraction for producers considering the conversion. However, the book awkwardly straddles two genres - slasher and thriller - which while making for a slightly more robust book, would probably put studios off simply because it would be difficult to promote The Trophy Taker as either. It can neither keep pace with the perversions of today's horror-porn output nor evoke the psychological fragility and investment necessary to make it a convincing thriller.

What the others say:

"The characters are appalingly simple, the dialogue is frequently hilarious in all the wrong ways, only the descriptions of a city that I've never visited made this anything other than a complete waste of time." - S Taylor, Amazon reviewer

So is it any good?

On a superficial level, there are a multitude of reasons to dislike this book. That the back cover displays a pie chart breaking down how much terror, thrills, drama, and law and order the reader can expect is a particularly forceful one. The specious comparison to Patterson is also difficult to swallow with this being Week's first novel. Of course, responsibility for these failings lies at the door of the publishing industry and it would be unfair to disregard the work on these grounds.

For this is certainly a solid debut and a worthwhile contribution to the genre; better written than most and more committed. There is a sense of moral apathy about the book's dark topic that at times make this an interesting examination of sex crimes and corruption, but Johnny Mann's facile and indomitable heroism soon remove the subject of its magnitude and realism and create a plot direction that while perfectly readable, does not leave any great lasting impression. It is almost solely Week's personal experience of Hong Kong that gives this book depth, although ultimately she seems to betray this in favour of grand criminality and overstated histrionics that belie a more subtle underworld that she is in a unique position to expose.

6.5/10

Mark Burton