INCY WINCY BY RJ DARK

25/3/2022

So, disclosures upfront: RJ is a friend. My review policy remains unaffected by friendship, and works as it always has; with very rare exceptions, I only review work that I finish and enjoy. And I enjoyed this a great deal. Still, being upfront, do with this information as you will.

Second, this is not a horror novel, it’s a crime novel. Y’all are probably sick of me banging on about the porous nature of genre and how everything’s really horror if you stare hard enough; I’m not gonna unsay any of that now, but it’d be dumb not to acknowledge that by the standards of almost everyone who isn’t me, this is obviously crime fiction.

And we’re back with Mal (fraudulent psychic medium, and absolutely not a private detective, despite what his new sign says) and Jackie (Mal’s best friend, landlord, protection money extorter, and the guy who put up the new sign over Mal’s repeated protests) and the residents/denizens of Blade’s Edge and surrounding environs. A direct sequel to A Numbers Game, though it would work as a stand-alone novel, Incy Wincy sees Mal getting dragged into a series of apparently unconnected cases involving a missing teenager and an ex-army buddy of Jackies. Fairly soon, he’s wading into the local drug trade (and in particular a short-lived street drug called ‘clown’ that seems to have set off some kind of turf skirmish), homeless shelters, Trolley Mick (gang boss of Blade’s Edge), the local Russian mob, well funded American evangelicals running a suspect homeless outreach program, UFO sightings, and the local landed gentry (and ex-army Captain). Oh, and the hyper-local racist Yorkshire Rose Party.

And, yeah, it is a lot.

Early in the story, a lot of the pleasure comes from Mal’s bafflement; like the reader, he can see vague connections begin to emerge, but the big picture is satisfyingly opaque. And Mal really isn’t a detective, private or otherwise; consequently, we are frequently treated to what amounts to a layperson perspective on a crime story. This approach played out to good effect in A Numbers Game and was, for me, even more effective here, bringing home the mundane horror of genre staples such as the children’s street gang or the inevitable autopsy scene. It's not that Mal is naive, exactly; he’s a product of his environment too, an ex-Blades Edge citizen and ex-drug addict, and his knowledge of the streets enables him to make connections, and talk to people, that a more removed investigator wouldn’t. At the same time, that closeness to his environment makes it personal, which manages to deliver a sense of genuine pathos throughout the story.

This is also, to a large degree, Jackie’s story, as people connected to his past life in the armed services start to resurface in inconvenient ways. Dark has a fine line to walk, here; Jackie is a fascinating character, but at least some of that fascination comes from the mystery of who he really is, and while a story like this basically had to happen at some point, there’s always a risk that doing so will detract from that unknowability. Luckily Dark is clearly alive to the pitfalls because Incy Wincy does a great job of telling me more about my favourite ex-armed services bisexual sheikh ‘local businessman’ whilst generating glimpses of even more tantalising depths. Jackie is a fantastic creation, deplorable and loveable in equal measure, and putting him up against racist drug dealers is an inspired decision; to misquote The Commitments, we get to enjoy the wish fulfilment of ‘yeah, he’s a psychopath, but he’s our psychopath’.

That said, things do not all go Mal and Jackie’s way. Indeed, in the final quarter of the narrative, things very quickly spiral completely out of control. Again, it’s very deft writing; Dark creates in us a sense of invulnerability around Jackie that feels like a safety net… only to shred that in fairly dramatic fashion, as the narrative ramps up to its conclusion. What follows is a finale that is, simply put, everything I look for in a crime fiction novel; unbearably tense, with a palpable sense of threat, and the dreadful/wonderful sinking feeling that things cannot possibly end well for our heroes, or really anybody.

In short, Incy Wincy is another triumph from Dark; a genuinely thrilling street crime novel that takes in poverty, politics (but I repeat myself), bigotry, and what passes for street justice and ethics, but whose fundamental focus is telling an absolute belter of a story that’ll keep you turning the pages way past bedtime. I loved it, even more than I loved A Numbers Game, and I cannot wait for the next instalment.

KP
23/3/22

Incy Wincy (Mal & Jackie Book 2)
by RJ Dark
Book 2 of 2: Mal & Jackie

Malachite Jones is a pretend psychic medium and an unwilling detective.

He certainly doesn't want anyone bringing him a missing persons case.

Definitely not two.

When the a body turns up he knows life is only going to get harder.

Blades Edge premier gangster, Trolley Mick, owes a favour to a family who’s son, Daniel Jerrings, has vanished. He wants Mal to pay it. Jackie’s friend from the military, Spider, is also missing. And though Jackie doesn’t really do friends, he does do loyalty and that means Mal does too.

But it seems that there are plenty of other people out there looking for Spider, and everything is spiralling down the drain in a wash of designer drugs, UFOs, racists, violent youth gangs and a group of evangelical Americans with their own agenda. Somehow, it all involves a missing teenager but nothing adds up, and violence lurks around every corner.

Discovering the truth means sinking deeper into the grimy world of organised crime where dangerous people have an awful lot to lose, and a way out for Mal and Jackie is getting harder and harder to see.

Incy Wincy picks up where A Numbers Game left off. Gritty, good hearted and laugh out loud funny. Mal and Jackie are back!