Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman
I would like to thank Sarah from Titan Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – Out Now
Price - £16.99 hardback
When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Senator Lee Rogers should’ve known better. But saying no would have taken a stronger man than Rogers, with his ailing wife and his robust libido. Enter Barton Brock, the senator’s fixer. He’s already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman – how hard could this new one turn out to be?
Pursued from Washington DC to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation and budding career are on the line. But what she doesn’t realise is that her life might be as well…
Heads Up Dear Reader this was a DNF and I rarely want to review these but, in this case, I really need to explain what made me furious reading this.
Noir crime stories became a style I first learned to enjoy in the movies. I like the moral ambiguity of characters and there is always a lot of fun in working out who is exactly double-crossing whom. When done well its extremely rewarding but when done badly it is often poor quality and plays to the worst parts of the genre. I was expecting great things from film director Brian De Palma and writer Susan Lehman instead I found a story that really hits all my wrong buttons and I especially found in its portrayal of women very quickly a disturbing approach.
We meet Barton Brock who uses a young woman he meets, young burger store employee Elizabeth, who he pays to try and honeytrap a philandering Senator that his employer is running against. This doesn’t go to plan for either but results in Barton getting hired by the Senator and Elizabeth running out of town and losing her hone . Elizabeth the. starts double crossing a young photographer and the Senator finds an old flames’ attractive young daughter wants to work for him (and more)while Brock stands ready to do what needs to be done to protect his boss.
And about 25% in I’d had enough. This read like a poorly converted movie script – visually described but flowing poorly and very mechanically with no real explanation of people’s motivations. What’s really the most appalling thing though is for a relatively recent story its hideously sexist. While I could excuse some fairly horrible characters leering over female characters what I found highly objectionable was the third-person narration doing it for no reason whatsoever. Women we meet are being described as beautiful and super attractive. They all felt like plot devices than real characters instantly attracted to the horrible much older male leads. It brought to mind many poor shallow 80s movies. It feels a horribly poor imitation of what good noir can be and the lack of decent roles for a female lead with agency was glaring. Please avoid!
