George Gould

George Gould's childhood was misspent largely in south London, with a formative sojourn in Brussels. After reaping honours at two universities, he travelled to Brazil, where he got up to all kinds of mischief. Finally, tiring of years of rootless globetrotting and a string of dead-end jobs, he settled down to writing. MONDO KANE is his first novel.

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Sharp-talking, existentially troubled Dodger leads a frenzied life as PA and dogsbody to one of London’s top crime bosses. He dreams of a better, saner existence, but fate has other plans for him. Sent to hire the services of notorious contract killer Bill Kane, little does he suspect that he is about to embark on a wild odyssey through the heart of Rio’s favelas and the sizzling backlands of northeastern Brazil. His orders are simple: to help Kane hunt down and kill Captain America, the organisation’s double-crossing second-in-command.

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But where Kane is involved, nothing remains simple for long. The instant they set foot in Rio, the unlikely duo are catapulted into a series of confrontations as bizarre as they are frightening, as comical as they are wired. Kane, who believes he is possessed by the soul of an Oglala Sioux shaman, has declared war on modern society and its evils, with cataclysmic results.

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 But even as the mission spirals out of control, Dodger finds himself little by little beginning to share in Kane’s unusual views on life, death and what it means to be human.

 Part gangster thriller in the Get Carter mould, part wild road-trip romp à la Fear and Loathing, this is a thousand-volt, turbo-paced tale that reads like an acid-fuelled rollercoaster ride through a war zone. The story takes you by the scruff of the neck, hurtles you halfway across the world, flips you upside-down, then drops you off at the end, breathless and reeling. And all told in the juiciest slang-and-expletive-filled mutation the English language has spawned in years.