Low Life

RD Jahn is one helluva writer. If you’ve not thought so before then the opening chapter of Low Life should convince you. He so compellingly describes waking in a run-down grubby two-room apartment that you can almost smell the rank cabbage-water air and see the paint peeling from the walls. He doesn’t so much write about a scene as drag the reader into it; in this instance into a low-rent, no-hope existence of worn shoes, frayed cuffs and a blanket nailed across the window in place of a curtain.

After so credibly setting the scene, RDJ then smashes it apart by introducing a doppelganger, a look-a-like in up-town clothes, who closely resembles the protagonist and does his best to throttle the life out of him. A violent struggle show more ensues, at the end of which one of the two men lies dead.

And then things get really out of control.

Low Life is an oh-so-clever psychodrama, a Gordian knot of a story where every part of the plot is important and you should pay attention to every single throwaway remark. Like the film Memento, the direction of the narrative is pretty clear (and not exactly original), but the route it takes is both bewildering and intriguing, complex and extremely clever.

Amid the emotional and narrative turmoil, Jahn spices the story with some scenes which will snap you back to attention – particularly the ‘cut myself shaving’ moment which is described in gloriously gory, unflinching intimacy.

There's more info and detail about the plot and characters over at:
https://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/low-life-a-gritty-psycholog...

If you enjoy fast-paced thrillers of the bleak and gory sort then you should love this. If your tastes tend more towards mainstream action-adventure romps then Low Life may be a little dark and violent for your tastes. Interestingly, I first read this a couple of years ago. Second time around it still kept me guessing and I enjoyed it just as much.

Both times I’d guessed mostly where the plot was heading before it arrived but even so was thoroughly delighted by the way the various threads were craftily stitched together to make the finale inescapable as well as inevitable.

Very clever, both in idea and execution. A small story but one well told.
8/10 show less

A thriller is right. Wow, what a mind-trip. Ups and downs, twists and turns, lies and deceptions, and a nagging mystery that gets so convoluted it doesn't seem possible to neatly wrap up in so few pages, but somehow, it completely pulls it off. This book is a thriller in drug form, complete with the hit, the high, and the memory of the lucid, abstract experience. What a strange yet captivating story, fantastic on all fronts.

Chrime phyco mystery thriller. Simon realises he has killed a man that looks like him and assumes his identity. His life beging to spiral out of control

2.34