Critical Mick

Tami Hoag has been climbing the bestseller charts like a chronically disobedient child on a playground jungle gym. Like the curious weasel that he is, Critical Mick nosed around to see why.

-Any fool highlighting the similarities to Critical Mick's Patented Hardboil Checklist, ala the Every Dead Thing crit, will be skinned like the bitchkitty they are.

This list's results leave me, like a dermatologist about to peel back a bandaid, asking "So what do we have here?" The answer, like so much chopped lettuce supporting several chilled artichoke hearts and one tiger prawn, is "not much."

Plot summary: like a generic young rebel from any "Yo! MTV Raps" video, a bike messenger accidentally collects a package of blackmail material. Like an unusually entertaining tidybowl ad, a generic square-headed killer and generic wisecracking detective with a heart o' gold soon swirl in pursuit. The chase goes ho-humming along.

"I know these tough L.A. streets like the back of my hand, yo, or like an egg foo yung of other cliches. Yo. Like, word to your mother. Like, yo."

Apologies if, like sixty thousand flea eggs hatching in your costume-shop Bee Gees afro wig, all these "like"s get annoying. Got it off Tami Hoag. Every action scene plays out through similies and metaphores. Like a lecturer's chronic lisp, after a while it's all you hear. It's as highly irritating as a character mentioning that he has an IQ of 168 at least once in every single one of his innumerable scenes.

The Dead Milkmen deliver a more memorable bike messenger character via "Peter Bazooka." And that tune's just 3:07 long.

Kill the Messenger isn't horrendously bad. It's no A Dangerous Business or Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. I just found it bland and unconvincing. This is effemeral summer reading, and was sadly outdated as soon as it hit the shelf. This novel aims to titilate with the backdrop of an OJ-style celebrity trial, and got trumped by the real-life Michael Jackson headlines.

On the plus side, the obvious love interest beats the snot out of one character instead of smooching him. And the lofty, pristine authority figure who proves untrustworthy is not the lofty, pristine authority figure I'd anticipated.

Critical Mick says: I've no interest in fashion labels and bitchy infighting. Mr. Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn and Carl Hiaasen's excellent Stormy Weather spin far closer to my speed. Kill the Messenger gets one flat tire and a can of Mountain Dew from me.

Critical Mick is not a Tami Hoag fan but his wife is. Even she didn't read this one though. Maybe her early work is better?