Kiss & Die

Matrioshki meets Arnie, with added ninjas. How does that sound?

As a youth Johnny Mann watched his father get murdered by Triads and vowed to bring them down. Later he learned that his father was actually a Triad himself and was killed for trying to get out. Now Mann is a member of the Hong Kong police force, doing all he can to bring down these criminal families whilst at the same time dealing with the stigma of his fathers legacy, not to mention the fortune he has inherited and doesn't want. Many of his colleagues don't trust him, the bad guys are trying to lure him to the dark side and there is a serial killer on the loose targeting foreign tourists. Mann has to catch the killer, stop a gang war and try not to spiral into drink and depression. It's all a bit bleak.

Except it's not, actually. It should be, but it's all laid on so thick, and with the subtlety of a brick to the temple, that it all just starts to feel ridiculous after a while.

Lee Weeks has written four Johnny Mann books to date, with Kiss And Die being the latest. They all follow the same basic pattern, with Mann being a bit grumpy while investigating some killings, his sidekick finding a couple of excuses to show off his kung fu fighting and the ongoing Triad storyline bubbling away in the background. The crimes usually have some kind of sexual theme, with prostitution, people smuggling, online kiddie porn and, well, just plain rape, being pretty much everywhere. This latest has as it's killer a young girl who likes to carve up men, during sex, which she accomplishes by drugging them and tying them up, then injecting their penises with a drug to get them physically aroused. (None of that is a spoiler by the way. These books are not whodunits, the killers and their methods being explicit from the start.)

Each book ends with some variation of Mann kicking loads of arse and slicing a few people up. Mann wraps up pretty much all of his cases by slaughtering a shedload of bad guys. His preferred method of killing is actually, just in case the kung fu sidekick wasn't enough of a cultural stereotype, throwing stars. One of which has a girls name, and is on an elastic, so it returns to him after use.

It's a bit of a shame really. The people smuggling and prostitution angles could have made for some excellent thriller/cultural commentary novels. God knows the issues are real enough and as anyone who has seen the criminally underrated TV show Matrioshki can attest, it is possible to tell a gritty crime drama with lots of sex and violence whilst still remaining respectful and educating the public as to what is going on under their noses. What we have here however is a case of real issues being cheapened to create a false sense of worthiness for what is essentially a brain dead action story of the type that Arnie was churning out in the eighties.

Why am I still reading, 4 books into the series? Well, I'll tell you. The characters are cliched, the storylines borderline offensive and some of the sexual violence is downright disturbing but for all of that, I love them to bits. A Mann book is never likely to win any great literary awards but so what? Sometimes you just want to switch off your brain and hearken back to the days when this kind of escapist nonsense was everywhere.When bad guys were evil, femme fatales were forever trying to seduce your hero and vigilante justice was king. It's tosh, of course it is, but it's mindless overblown tosh that can't help but entertain and doesn't outstay it's welcome. And anyway, who says every book has to mean something.

If there is a 5th Johnny Mann book (and let's face it, there will be a 5th Johnny Mann book, and likely a 25th) I'll be there to pick it up.