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King of the Cross

by Mark Dapin

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231976,373 (3.38)None
Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction King of the Cross is crime fiction unlike any other. Hilarious, violent, subversive and gripping, Mark Dapin's award-winning novel explores the world of Jacob Mendoza: ruler of Kings Cross and, for more than forty years, Australia's most powerful and infamous crime figure. Now in his eighties, Mendoza decides to employ a hapless young journalist to ghostwrite his memoir. As Mendoza reveals his epic life of thugs and drugs, murders and mayhem, crooked cops and girls, girls, girls, it appears that he's not the only one with a past. And as his story develops, other more terrifying criminals are circling the kingdom that Mendoza built. 'Dapin is a writer who punches with both hands and winks at the crowd while he's at it. His protagonist is part punk, part pug, part poet - an anti-hero who reveals his own back story as he gets the King of the Cross to unravel the eerily familiar tale of his unlikely rise. Truth might be stranger than fiction but in the hardened artery of Dapin's Kings Cross, alleged fiction rings truer than the alleged facts. A cunning stunt that could get him knee-capped.' Andrew Rule, author of Underbelly 'Profane, funny and sometimes confronting . . . This book is not for the easily offended. Hilarious . . . outrageous . . . It's a wild, macho ride.' Sydney Morning Herald 'I laughed out loud . . . There are some brilliant linguistic gymnastics. Dapin brings to the book the quirky, insightful turn of phrase that makes his newspaper columns for Good Weekend mandatory reading . . . a funny, over-the-top, well-written read.' Stephen Romei, Australian Literary Review 'Punctuated by lacerating comic dialogue and scenes of explosive violence, full of the kind of inventive word play and thinly veiled social commentary that make Florida-based crime author Carl Hiaasen so much fun to read - and, as with Hiaasen, there's ample substance beneath the dialogue.' The Age 'Dapin does a fine job of interweaving Mendoza's reminiscences of past crimes and crimes with a brutal story of current criminal intrigue. Although fiction, Dapin's no-holds barred history of Kings Cross and the city's criminal past rings true and his portrayal of modern Sydney is also brutally honest.' Canberra Times 'Explosive, gritty, hilarious and - best of all - truly original. This book detonates while you're reading it.' Robert Drewe.… (more)
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Anybody with a passing interest in notorious Australian "identities" in the not so distant past isn't going to take too long to figure out who Mendoza is based on, and that same reader probably is going to be excused for any guesses about the writer who narrates this fictional book.

Basically the story is that a journalist working for The Australian Jewish Times makes a complete hash of a story and ends up being fired by the editor. Circumstances intervene, things happen, he finds himself interviewing / writing the life story of Sydney gangster Jacob Mendoza. Mendoza is what he is, although he does try to wrap it up in a lot of long-winded justification. Klein, the writer, isn't what he says he is. He wraps that up in a bit of a story as well.

Most of Mendoza's story is told in a series of long interviews or monologues, whilst most of Klein's story is narrated by him - aiming
obviously for an unreliable narrator scenario Undoubtedly the author has a fine eye and understanding of the characters that inhabit Kings Cross, but that fine eye seems somehow to fall sort when it comes to his two central characters. Mendoza's story is, I suppose, supposed to be hilariously funny - and there were some lines that absolutely raised a smile. It was also seemingly supposed to be confrontational - crude, rude and more than a bit risqué. Which has, after all, been done before and whilst I'm a big fan of writers doing this in our own voice, it has to be a more complete package.

Unfortunately I found KING OF THE CROSS a little too tedious, a little too forced and the few good touches didn't quite compensate. ( )
  austcrimefiction | Jul 12, 2010 |
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Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction King of the Cross is crime fiction unlike any other. Hilarious, violent, subversive and gripping, Mark Dapin's award-winning novel explores the world of Jacob Mendoza: ruler of Kings Cross and, for more than forty years, Australia's most powerful and infamous crime figure. Now in his eighties, Mendoza decides to employ a hapless young journalist to ghostwrite his memoir. As Mendoza reveals his epic life of thugs and drugs, murders and mayhem, crooked cops and girls, girls, girls, it appears that he's not the only one with a past. And as his story develops, other more terrifying criminals are circling the kingdom that Mendoza built. 'Dapin is a writer who punches with both hands and winks at the crowd while he's at it. His protagonist is part punk, part pug, part poet - an anti-hero who reveals his own back story as he gets the King of the Cross to unravel the eerily familiar tale of his unlikely rise. Truth might be stranger than fiction but in the hardened artery of Dapin's Kings Cross, alleged fiction rings truer than the alleged facts. A cunning stunt that could get him knee-capped.' Andrew Rule, author of Underbelly 'Profane, funny and sometimes confronting . . . This book is not for the easily offended. Hilarious . . . outrageous . . . It's a wild, macho ride.' Sydney Morning Herald 'I laughed out loud . . . There are some brilliant linguistic gymnastics. Dapin brings to the book the quirky, insightful turn of phrase that makes his newspaper columns for Good Weekend mandatory reading . . . a funny, over-the-top, well-written read.' Stephen Romei, Australian Literary Review 'Punctuated by lacerating comic dialogue and scenes of explosive violence, full of the kind of inventive word play and thinly veiled social commentary that make Florida-based crime author Carl Hiaasen so much fun to read - and, as with Hiaasen, there's ample substance beneath the dialogue.' The Age 'Dapin does a fine job of interweaving Mendoza's reminiscences of past crimes and crimes with a brutal story of current criminal intrigue. Although fiction, Dapin's no-holds barred history of Kings Cross and the city's criminal past rings true and his portrayal of modern Sydney is also brutally honest.' Canberra Times 'Explosive, gritty, hilarious and - best of all - truly original. This book detonates while you're reading it.' Robert Drewe.

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