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    Boxer, Beetle: A Novel
    Boxer, Beetle: A Novel
    Boxer, Beetle: A Novel
    Ebook290 pages4 hours

    Boxer, Beetle: A Novel

    By Ned Beauman

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the "effervescent" (Washington Post) author of Madness is Better than Defeat and The Teleportation Accident, a rollicking novel about fascism, boxing, entomology, eugenics, and desire.

    Kevin "Fishy" Broom has his nickname for a reason: he has a rare genetic condition that makes him smell markedly like rotting fish. Consequently, he rarely ventures out of the London apartment where he deals online in Nazi memorabilia. But when Fishy stumbles upon a crime scene, he finds himself on the long-cold trail of a pair of small-time players in interwar British history. First, there's Philip Erskine, a fascist gentleman entomologist who dreams of breeding an indomitable beetle as tribute to Reich Chancellor Hitler's glory, all the while aspiring to arguably more sinister projects in human eugenics. And then there's Seth "Sinner" Roach, a homosexual Jewish boxer, nine-toed, runtish, brutish--but perfect in his way--who becomes an object of obsession for Erskine, professionally and most decidedly otherwise. What became of the boxer? What became of the beetle? And what will become of anyone who dares to unearth the answers?

    Ned Beauman spins out a dazzling narrative across decades and continents, weaving his manic fiction through the back alleys of history. Boxer, Beetle is a remarkably assured, wildly enjoyable debut.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateSep 13, 2011
    ISBN9781608197316
    Boxer, Beetle: A Novel
    Author

    Ned Beauman

    Ned Beauman was born in 1985 and studied philosophy at Cambridge University. He has written for Dazed & Confused, AnOther Magazine, the Guardian, the Financial Times, and several other magazines and newspapers. He lives in London and is is at work on his second novel. Visit www.boxerbeetle.com.

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    Reviews for Boxer, Beetle

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Rating: 4.25* of fiveThe Publisher Says: Kevin "Fishy" Broom has his nickname for a reason-a rare genetic condition that makes his sweat and other bodily excretions smell markedly like rotting fish. Consequently, he rarely ventures out of the London apartment where he deals online in Nazi memorabilia. But when Fishy stumbles upon a crime scene, he finds himself on the long-cold trail of a pair of small-time players in interwar British history. First, there's Philip Erskine, a fascist gentleman entomologist who dreams of breeding an indomitable beetle as tribute to Reich Chancellor Hitler's glory, all the while aspiring to arguably more sinister projects in human eugenics. And then there's Seth "Sinner" Roach, a homosexual Jewish boxer, nine-toed, runtish, brutish-but perfect in his way-who becomes an object of obsession for Erskine, professionally and most decidedly otherwise. What became of the boxer? What became of the beetle? And what will become of anyone who dares to unearth the answers?First-time novelist Ned Beauman spins out a dazzling narrative across decades and continents, weaving his manic fiction through the back alleys of history. Boxer, Beetle is a remarkably assured, wildly enjoyable debut.My Review: Pawn Stars meets Queer as Folk, directed by Leni Riefenstahl and produced by Russell T Davies.I read this after I'd gulped down The Teleportation Accident. Whatever Ned Beauman writes, he leavens with amusing dialogue and mildly incredible situations. I've heard his work characterized as science fiction. I think of that as a compliment, yet I'm not sure that label fits. It feels to me more as though Beauman has Anglicized the South American Magical Realism, shining the black light and the strobe light simultaneously on real situations, recognizable people, and commonplace locations, thereby revealing the bloodstains, the slug tracks, and the frightened faces of bystanders to the events unfurling before us.This strange tale of fascists obsessed with Jewish sex objects is made much more fun by the modern-day frame around it. The Nazi-memorabilia thread made the whole story come together, as there was no missing the echoes of the insanity of the 1930s in modern times.But to me the 4ft11in Sinner Roach (a piece of word-play that only makes sense in the book's context) steals the book. A boxer who makes more money from the men he fucks than he'd ever dreamed possible, goes to New York to fight the biggest fight of his career. If he can stay sober, he'll be in the big time. Well...Sinner is aptly named, let's say. His antics in New York and London are worth the book's cost. But the modern-day outcast, Sinner's echo, good-guy hacker/thief Fishy is just as amusing as he races around London in Sinner's long-ago wake to make his own big-time score. Where the two paths converge is a very moving moment. Considering Beauman's apparent dislike of sentimentality, it's also unusual.I can't help but complain about one thing: The Philip Erskine Malaise. As soon as he takes over the narrative, he leaches the fun and slows the pace from the narrative. His wishy-washy mealy-mouthed scaredy-cat snobbery made me cringe, roll my eyes, and snort impatiently. Hence the 3/4-star deduction from the rating. Because this started out as a 5-star read, and should have stayed one. Don't cheat yourself, though, get the book on your TBR hillock somewhere neat the top.
    • 4/5
      It's too short to give the material proper treatment. The framing device of Kevin in modern day is almost unimportant.
    • 4/5
      Beauman's first novel is a great read. Lots of humour and a gripping story that never takes itself too seriously. Sort of like a Malcolm price detective time travelling novel with a bit of 19th century eugenics thrown in. Very satisfying. If you liked it then read his second.
    • 3/5
      A massive exploration into eugenics, Boxer, Beetle is ambitious. The two main characters are self-loathing bastards, though their self-destruction manifests itself in different ways. It's a man's world, so the only woman who comes close to being a main character is somehow more well-adjusted (perhaps because she is straight and the men are not straight.) The narrator doesn't seem to be a main character to me, because the book is strangely more about the past than the present. And the story in both the past and the present takes many twists and turns.

      What Beauman does well is the development of the neurotic male characters (Erskine and Broom) in the book. Their lives, their personal and social constraints, their worries, and their ambitions make them whole. What Beauman does too much of, for me, is the political blabber about the anti-Semitic, eugenics-centered arguments between politicians and intellectuals that go on and on and on for pages, where, yes, one would need to look up many events that happen or are referred to make sense of most of it. That's all fine; who doesn't like to work a little to learn some good history? (Uhm, some people don't, so this book is not recommended for those...) But somehow it was too much, too long, and at some point I found myself skimming through the anti-Semitic bullshit to get to the action or the personal developments. All of it reminded me of Rushdie's books where references to current affairs and historical events are a staple of every paragraph, but Beauman's prose does not flow as well or is not as captivating. There is also the added massive uncomfortable feeling of reading horrendously racist things being said that if you grew up in the West and are not a skinhead, you might find yourself cringing a lot. Of course, most of it is also hilarious. But not at all. But yes. But no. And it goes...

      As for the beetles... As someone who designs biological experiments to test hypotheses on a daily basis, I am not sure what the question is that is being asked by the experiments with the beetles in the book. That selective breeding can improve select traits? But that's not what Erskine's genius (eugenics) idea, that's only what agriculture and farming has been doing for centuries. Can we breed better stuff by combining those that have select good traits? Sure, but nowhere in the book do we learn that Erskine has done such experiments. What seems to happen int he book is that there are some beetles and by feeding them different stuff and/or over time, Erskine allows them to become super beetles... Uhm, OK... (Perhaps all this is to ridicule the "science" of eugenics?)

      In the end, I am glad I read this book and learned some stuff about fascism in Europe (Blackshirts, Battle of Cable Street, etc.) I am not sure if I would recommend to to anyone, other than those who really enjoy intellectual, historical, and rather uncomfortable subject matters.

    • 3/5
      Nazis! Nazi memorabilia collectors! Boxers! Boxing promoters! Insects! Entomologists! Sufferers of trimethylaminuria! People who have to work with and smell them!The ecosystem of Ned Beauman's Boxer, Beetle is complicated and repulsive, but wound up not being quite as compelling as other reviewers have made it sound.

      The novel intertwines two narratives and two timelines in the now-classic format of a historical narrative being chased down by a modern explorer. In the 21st century, we have a young man named Fishy (so named for his unfortunate, genetically-determined body chemistry and the odors it produces), who conducts internet auctions of historical artifacts at his day job, and has a special sideline in the Nazi memorabilia trade for a hobby, and whose latest mysterious pursuit (alongside a nasty gun-toting freelancer who is killing his way to a new find) leads him to start exploring the story of a British entomologist, fascist and eugenics enthusiast and the diminutive Jewish boxer whom the entomologist manipulates into becoming the subject of some, err, special research in 1936.

      Trimethylaminuria is neither played up for laughs (something I was kind of expecting-with-a-cringe from the novel's earliest pages) nor presented as a subject for our compassion or pity (though in real life lots of sufferers wind up committing suicide as a result of the social isolation it tends to impose, the Gordon Crisps of the world aside) as it stands in, in the modern timeline, for all of the things about humanity eugenicists want to eliminate (in 1936, of course, they're much more blatant and reprehensible about it). For Fishy it's just a fact in his life, albeit one that has dealt him out of the reproductive sweepstakes far more effectively than anything the eugenicists of yesteryear would have dared to dream of. He's got bigger concerns as the novel unfolds, like surviving and escaping from his weird captor. Or so it would seem as the novel gets going, but then Fishy and the gunman disappear except for quick and pointless interludes. Fishy's disorder winds up being kind of a punchline for the novel, but otherwise, there really isn't much point to his being in it. Which is a shame.

      Meanwhile, Philip Erskine's story (1936) is a study in multiform ickiness, not because he specializes in carrion-eating/carnivorous insects, but because of his and his family's matter-of-fact fascism and anti-semetism and, while we're at it, classism. For Erskine is a character straight out of Michel Houellebecq, that French novelist I so love to hate and hate to love. Amid all of his other passions and pretenses are little observations like this one, made while he tries to address the difficult problem of how to masturbate when sharing a cabin and a bed with a professional colleague: "Why couldn't one just go to the doctor every month to have one's semen, this irrational fluid, syringed off like the pus from a boil."

      This long before he is shown regarding a semen sample demanded from his boxer specimen as "ootheca", a term usually reserved for the egg case of members of that insect family that contains mantises and cockroaches, thus demonstrating just how human he thinks Seth Roach isn't (and lest one think Roach is by any stretch of the imagination a sympathetic figure or victim, he's just biding his time until he can go out again and get rip-roaring drunk and beat the crap out of whatever "toff" is foolish enough to take him home. There's rough sex, and there's what Roach does. Yikes.).

      So, like Arslan before it in my reading this year, this is a fairly repellent and ugly book, but this time unredeemed by beautiful prose. Beauman takes great, gleeful pleasure in giving us a close look at some of the greatest ugliness humanity has ever produced, and at the people who allowed it to flourish largely because they were happy to admire it from a distance. Erskine, for instance, is, in addition to all the other icky things he is, such a fan of Adolf Hitler's that he goes so far as to breed a stronger, nastier, more belligerent strain of an eyeless beetle he originally discovered in a cave in the Poland the Fuhrer is soon to invade, all so that there might be an insect worthy of being named after his hero.

      And then there's the boxer, all four foot eleven of him, nine-toed Seth Roach, descended from immigrants chased away by pogroms from the environs of the cave where Erskine found his breeding stock, the kind of gay man who embraces the idea that his preferences are considered perversions and who not only lets himself get roped into being Erskine's study subject, but into coming along to a fateful conference that is supposed to be about artificial languages (think Esperanto, only weirder and more fiddly) but winds up being something rather more vile.

      But hey, sometimes, at least, Boxer, Beetle is funny, as when we come, midway through the book, to a description of Erskine's ancestral home, which his father had determined to modernize so thoroughly that it would still be modern in a hundred years. Rube Goldberg isn't in it. I could have maybe used more of this kind of thing for my tour through the slime -- especially in a novel that is promoted as "hilarious." Had I been looking for belly laughs instead of bugs, I might have been annoyed at the paucity of the former (as it was, I could have used more of the latter, but that's what Daniel Evan Weiss' debut was for. And Tyler Knox's for that matter). As it stands, well, this is the first novel of a young man of undoubted talent but who maybe bit off a bit much for his first project. His second, The Teleportation Accident, was long-listed for the Man Booker this year, and sounds interesting enough for me to give it another chance, but on the strength of the subject matter more than of his writing as I've seen it so far.

      Anyway, it doesn't sound like it's quite as filthy.
    • 3/5
      This is a review of a free book I received via the Goodreads First Reads program. It took forever for the book to be delivered to me, longer than usual for me to finish, and even longer for me to get around to a review attempt. Oops!

      First off, this is not a book for the easily offended. Sure boxers and beetles sound innocuous enough, but then there's all the antisemitism, sex and violence in between. The characters are pretty despicable people too. And yet...I liked it. There's something about Ned Beauman's style that makes me want to give him another go. I'm just hoping that if I do cross paths with this author again, it will be with a book that has characters I can actually root for.
    • 4/5
      What on earth to say about this book? Essentially, it's about the wrong-headedness of trying to impose order on a beautifully chaotic world. As you might guess from a book on this theme, it's rather chaotic itself, although perhaps not beautifully so, as it delights in being shocking.So, we have a cast of assorted doctrinaire crazies; designers of languages which will be more logical than the ones we have, architects who are led by their theories to build buildings that human beings can't live in, Nazis. Yes. You might think that there are other things to say about the Holocaust than that it was impractical. But then, I said this book delighted in being shocking.It also has a cast of really quite unpleasant characters - although this didn't diminish my enjoyment, either of the chaos or of the sardonically funny writing. "We had been driving west on the M3, past great drizzly industrial estates where men in overalls tended economies of scale like oxpeckers on a rhino".What this book reminded me of most was a slightly toned-down Will Self. I like Self in small doses, so that suited me pretty well. But don't expect it to make too much sense.
    • 3/5
      I tried SO hard to like this book, but I just could not get into it. Was that because one of the main characters was an upper-class A-hole entomologist with racist leanings? Or was it the back and forth between different timelines, and a group of equally unappealing characters? I don't know, but I had to force myself to read it.Parts of this book are quite funny, and literally laugh out loud. Mostly, though, I found it just too grim and depressing. Nazis and the freaks that collect their leavings are not interesting to me; nor are small feisty Jewish boxers. Even with beetles.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book immensely. Things I like about it:-The way that everything about it is new, fresh, and original. The characters, the plot, the way it unfolds, everything is interesting.-The dialogue is witty and concise. The descriptive writing is clever and subtly humorous.-The shocking, grotesque, and "naughty" elements in the plot that keep it unexpected and engaging. I've long believed that some of the best reading happens when there is an element of the forbidden involved.The only times that I found my interest flagging were during some of the political bits about the war situation, etc., but I don't think it was unneccessary. On the whole, I feel that this book is a rousing success, and I agree with all of the blurbs on the jacket, especially the one from Time Out:"Witty, erudite...articulate and original...often gobsmackingly smutty."
    • 4/5
      I liked Ned Beauman's Boxer, Beetle: A Novel well enough as an interesting, challenging little book, most enjoyable when viewed as an elaborate set-piece. On the other hand, readers looking for depth and insight, or high comedy, might best look elsewhere.Beauman's Work begins with an extended, detailed construct of a plot: alternating between the present (early 21st Century) and past, Kevin, a small-time, contemporary collector of Nazi memorabilia, stumbles on a secret history of events in England during the years of Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Erskine, the pseudo-scientist son of a minor British nobleman, occupies himself in 1930s London (possibly hiding from an eccentric father and family back at the ancestral estate) with his "work" in genetics and eugenics, as expressed in a robust, vicious species of previously unidentified beetle, cruising homosexual clubs of London by night. Early in the novel, Erskine happens on a prize-fight, during which he becomes obsessed with one particular boxer -- Seth Roach, a diminutive, deformed Jew, alcoholic and homosexual himself, who remarkably prevails to win his fights. To Erskine's mind, Roach is a human specimen of eugenic "principles" in action -- inherently weak and despicable, yet possessed of extraordinary, innate ability and strength that help him thrive. Thereafter, the novel moves ahead in rather systematic progression, detailing successive plot events as they unfold.Unfortunately, with little direction or purpose save the plot itself, Boxer, Beetle boils down to not much (if anything) more than light entertainment. The characters -- Erskine, Roach, and others -- are moderately engaging but shallow stereotypes (the Eccentric Father, the Fascist Neighbor, the Nymphomaniac Sister, the Maid, the Butler, etc.), each limited by his or her place in the story and what will advance its telling. Plot developments that should be compelling -- Erskine's scientific "discoveries," Roach's degeneracy and decline, even the ultimately defining moment of their relationship -- are simply mechanical components, leading to resolution (such as it is) when the secrets of history break in on Kevin's (remember him?) present day.There is humor, intelligence and wit in the telling, particularly in a dark and scatological vein; but the cover copy come-ons -- "Terrific," "Gripping," "Hilarious," "Exhilarating," etc. -- plainly oversell the Work, thereby doing both Beauman and the novel a disservice. The problem is more than simple differences between British and American humor; the publisher promises a Tom-Sharpe-style farce, but Beauman is about something else entirely. For Beauman's sake, I hope his next effort (The Teleportation Accident, apparently due in late 2012 or 2013) demonstrates the growth and promise we would look for in a young writer. Otherwise, I'd be slow to expect anything much more or different from a third book to follow two years on.
    • 4/5
      This is an extremely interesting premise. It's a mystery where the detective suffers from severe body odor. And when I say severe, I do mean severe. It was a hard premise to get into at first, fortunately the extremely good writing made it a lot easier. A very interesting read. Strongly recommended for those looking for a twist on the deceptive genre
    • 4/5
      I now have finally found the time to read this book. I found myself laughing out loud more than once. Book was enjoyable, and fast paced. I have passed the book on to a friend.
    • 4/5
      This genre-bending, unique novel is difficult to describe. There's a mystery plot, a collector of Nazi memorabilia, a eugenics doctor, insects, and the list goes on. I highly recommend reading this with friends or family so you can have someone to discuss the novel with (though you might not want to discuss those sex scenes!). I also enjoyed the abundant humor. Overall, this novel was more weird than wonderful, but I applaud its originality.
    • 4/5
      This book is an intriguing mix of past and present. There's a contemporary murder mystery plot that intertwines with the story of a collector of Nazi memorabilia and the period between the World Wars. This novel is entertaining and funny and also unique and a bit weird. Read this if you're looking for something different.
    • 4/5
      Not for the faint of heart - this tale is a combination of Evelyn Waugh's bitter English satire and Pynchonesque conspiracy metafiction with a dash of hard boiled noir. Only funnier and more pornographic. Nazis, bugs, buggery, and 1930's London class warfare.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable, mischievious page turner - reminiscent of Conan Doyle. Comes to a rather contrived conclusion unfortunately.
    • 4/5
      Boxer Beetle follows to parallel stories, separated only by several decades. One is the story of a Jewish boxer in 1930s England who is being studied by entomologist-turned-eugenics doctor by the name of Erskine. A mystery surrounding the two is discovered by present day Kevin, a collector of Nazi Memorabilia. Kevin finds himself in trouble after his patron is killed and he is forced to search for the only bit of legacy left behind by the fascist-obsessed eugenics doctor. The book is an interesting fictionalization of Nazi ideology over time and eugenics. The characters are riveting if not always likable, although the details of the story can be a bit overwhelming.
    • 2/5
      I'm sorry to say that I didn't get this one. I did laugh in a few places, but I guess I'm not political enough to get the humor that is claimed on the cover.The narrative jumps between current times and the 1930s. We meet Kevin Brown, an internet trader who goes to auction sites to buy and sell Nazi memorabilia. Then we meet Seth "Sinner' Roach and Dr. Erkskine back in 1934. The doctor and Sinner have a strange arrangement where Sinner allows the doctor to study him for science. He had been doing these eugenics studies on beetles but wanted to move on to humans and chose Sinner.
    • 3/5
      I received Boxer Beetle as part of the Early Reviewers program. I was eager to dive in based on the description - combining historical fiction with science is right up my alley. But Beauman fell short for me here. The characters didn't seem fully developed, sure they were described well but they seemed to lack whatever it is that makes me truly care about fictional characters. The two timelines were interwoven nicely even if both could have been expanded a bit. Also, what was with all of the in your face gay sex? It seemed like Beauman went out of his way to make it known that several of the characters were gay and horny, neither of which added to the plot in any significant manner. I will say that I enjoyed the beetle aspect of the story line and would have liked a little more on that. The beetles after breeding by Erskine were certainly horrific and the scenes involving them were done well- made me squirm! I really wish I liked this book more than I did. I'll be interested in seeing future reviews and will keep Ned Beauman on my radar and consider reading future works.
    • 4/5
      So the first thing you need to know about this book is that the writing is really great. Beauman puts together great sentences, and although I'm not going to be able to finish the book, I'm the subject matter (broadly eugenics and the Nazis, more specifically, entomology, Nazi memorabilia, and the psychology, or perhaps the pathology, if you will, of sex) is definitely interesting. In other words, the plot definitely pulled me in.There's a lot of violence in here, though, a lot of gross, gory violence, eloquently described but perpetrated against small animals and the otherwise sort of helpless, and I just can't do it, even though this is an Early Reviewer book. I looked back at the description, and I don't think it was misleading, but I wasn't prepared for the level of violence and the detail in which it is described, and I wouldn't have requested the book if I'd realized how important that would be to the plot. It's not on every page, but there's enough that it's too much for me. Your mileage, of course, may vary.The writing is really excellent, so I'm sad to have to put this down, but I won't sleep, I know, if I try to finish it. This isn't a book for me, but I tend to be a little more upset by this kind of thing than average, I think, and so I don't mean to dis-recommend the book, just to offer a warning about what you will find in it.
    • 3/5
      This is an intersing study in fiction of eugenics wrapped in chronological mystery. "The story centers around Philip Erskine, a young entomologist and Nazi sympathizer in 1936. He becomes obsessed with a Jewish boxer, Seth Roach. The novel actually opens in modern-day London, with a murder and a number of Nazi memorabilia collectors," writes syntheticvox. I aggree with that brief summary. The language and tone of the book are rather academic which is a striking contast to the base and emotionally honest dialogue and emotion expressed by the characters. The authors handles the chronoglocail shifts well and each character is larger than the description on the page. There are not sympathic characters in the book nor are there meant to be. Each character is a unique clash of opposite traits which only causes further conflict when confronted in groups of characters. The plot and writing do feel a bit two dimensional at times but the author is to be commeneded for interweaving so many character traits while using such a light touch. A nice film of dark comedy wraps the whole of the book. A strong effort that inidcates the rawness of the author is backed with plenty of talent.
    • 3/5
      I found this book rather disappointing. It has already been released in the UK to (what seems to be) great reviews. Nevertheless, I had difficulty finishing the short novel. The story centers around Philip Erskine, a young entomologist and Nazi sympathizer in 1936. He becomes obsessed with a Jewish boxer, Seth Roach. The novel actually opens in modern-day London, with a murder and a number of Nazi memorabilia collectors. It isn't well into the novel that we understand why the two are connected. The characters, save for Sinner Roach, are completely unsympathetic, including the modern-day protagonist, Kevin, Inexplicably, he has a terrible smelling disease, trimethylaminuria. I have no idea why that was even added, nor do I care. The final third of the book picked up pace and interest, but by that time, I really hadn't gained any interest in Erskine. There were several tangents (Erskine's grandfather's obsession with creating a global language, for example) that added nothing to the book. Further, the "twists" (such as they were) were so late in the making that they didn't have any impact.
    • 4/5
      Part Chuck Palahniuk novel, part surreal historical fiction, Boxer, Beetle: A Novel by Ned Beauman, tells two different stories from two different times. The main character, Fishy, an odd sort of person who collects Nazi memorabilia, finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery that dates back to World War II. While this is not usually the type of book I pick up to read, it was fast and enjoyable and just a bit weird.
    • 4/5
      A likeable book, even if a crucial character (our titular boxer) is one of the most relentlessly unlikeable people I can recall reading about. Clever, charming, strange, funny and dark. What more can you want from a first novel - or any novel, for that matter?
    • 5/5
      A strange little book, two stories, two different timelines, connected by coincidence: one story tells of Fishy, named so because of his affliction, trimethylaminuria, which makes him stink of fish. He finds Nazi memorabilia for paying costumers. One day he stumbles across a dead body and in the flat of said corpse he finds a letter from Adolf Hitler to a Doctor Erskine. The second story is the story of Erskine and a Jewish boxer - and slowly those two stories connect. The prose is easy to read, but not simple, and the story grabs you and draws you into the strange world we are offered here.
    • 2/5
      Too much unnecessary swearing and descriptions of buggery, barely redeemed by a half-decent ending.
    • 4/5
      Boxer, Beetle is wonderfully written. Funny, raw and true to its mark, every sentence and phrase is jewel-like but not at all precious. The humor is dark and deadly. Grit underfoot and the taste of blood...rusty barbed wire and macabre death.The novel begins in the present day with Kevin “Fishy” Broom who suffers from trimethylaminuria, a rare condition that leaves him smelling horribly like rotting fish! He collects and deals in Nazi memorabilia. Fishy is a strangely likeable character. Working for wealthy property developer Grublock, who also collects Nazi memorabilia, he is sent to check up on a private investigator. Finding him dead, he also finds a note to someone called Dr. Erskine from Adolf Hitler. When Grublock is murdered, the novel turns into a tense fast-paced thriller as Fishy attempts to find out the connection between the entomologist Erskine, the jewish boxer “Sinner” Roach and whoever is on his trail and killing people. The novel alternates between the quest in the present day and, more often, chapters set in the 30s as the events take place.The characters are not likeable but you like them anyway. Seth “Sinner” Rauch, a jewish boxer in 1930s London is despicably heartwarming. Dr. Erskine the eugenics-obsessed entomologist is driven and wrong-headed but so sincere! There are no heroes in this novel. No one of redeeming character. Everyone is wonderfully engaging in the most goulish way. There are long lovely discussions about dissonant music, town planning and invented languages. Riots, sex and the supernatural all have a place in this brilliant first novel. And beetles...lots of beetles. A thoroughly satisfying read.

    Book preview

    Boxer, Beetle - Ned Beauman

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