Book picks similar to
Serpent Girl by Matthew Carnahan


fiction
circus
fiction-general
carnival-circus-life

Getting Rid of Mister Kitchen


Charlie Higson - 1996
    On the verge of becoming a name in the interior design world, he can't afford a scandal and must discreetly dispose of the body—not an easy job when the whole of London seems to be conspiring against him.

Once Upon a Crime


Fergus Craig - 2021
    Now Exeter is set to become the UK Capital of Culture and the ambitious Lord Mayor wants to turn things around. But when a young man's (dead) body is found in the centre of town, things get murky.Detective Roger LeCarre is a character never seen before in modern fiction - a tough but troubled detective with a drink problem and a marriage in trouble. Can he find out who killed the young man, save the city and change his energy provider before the new more expensive tariff kicks in?Filled with drama, eroticism and very specific Wikipedia-sourced information on Devon, Once Upon A Crime is a thriller which demands to be read.

Shit Happens


Eileen Wharton - 2012
    She's got problems though when bits of her ex-husband turn up in different places and the slimy DI Savage seems to be bending the evidence to link her to the death. Add the fact that she's being pressured into taking a ‘job’ by hard-nosed Vera Devlin from the estate and having to work in a topless bar to make ends meet and you can see she's up against it. Desperate to extricate herself from the mess she breaks into her old marital home to find the diary of her dead husband, except that his mother has taken up residence and arrives back early from bingo… Set against a backdrop of Northern council estate life, this fast paced, humorous novel exemplifies the problems caused by poverty, piles and unruly children, think Jeremy Kyle meets the Thorn Birds and you won't be far wrong!

Outlaws


Kevin Sampson - 2001
    Gun law is out of control. Organized gangs are fighting for supremacy in clubland and the lucrative supply of narcotics. Younger, more ruthless gangs are moving in. Ged, Moby and Ratter, three South End villains, are old-fashioned highwaymen with two decades of meticulously planned jobs behind them. But times are tough. It’s Christmas and Ged is planning a job to see the boys through until spring. As usual, he won’t give them any details until the morning of the job. Until then, they have to stay off the street and keep out of trouble.But Moby loves to go out – girls love him, guys send drinks over – he could live like this forever. And Ratter wants out – he’s invested his loot in the booming property sector. As the heist approaches, Ged needs to summon all his street savvy and killer instinct just to survive.

Shatter My Rock


Greta Nelsen - 2012
    And when a vicious migraine sends her to a saggy hotel bed and him to the marketing conference in her place, she is first relieved and then thankful.Weeks later, upon discovering she’s pregnant, Claire has no reason for concern. With the help of genetic counselors and fertility specialists, she and her college-sweetheart husband, Tim, have been striving for a sibling for their ten-year-old daughter, Ally. And now they have one: a precious baby boy they name Owen.But all is not well, and soon Claire begins spotting alarming quirks in Owen’s behavior that suggest he may be stricken with Batten Disease, the terminal illness that took her brother, Ricky, back in nineteen seventy-nine. If Claire is right and Owen is sick, other disturbing things may also be true. Things like: Claire has been raped; Owen is not Tim’s son; and Owen is going to die. As events unfold, Claire finds herself confronting unthinkable choices, the consequences of which could jeopardize her career, her marriage, and even her freedom.

The Mother's Tale


Camilla Noli - 2009
    She used to be a successful career woman in control of her life and with her husband's undivided attention. But now her control is slipping away. Motherhood is devouring her life. She is desperate to reclaim her sense of self, even if that means thinking the unthinkable.

Written in Dead Wax


Andrew Cartmel - 2016
    His business card describes him as the “Vinyl Detective” and some people take this more literally than others. Like the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording — on behalf of an extremely wealthy (and rather sinister) shadowy client.  Given that he’s just about to run out of cat biscuits, this gets our hero’s full attention. So begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all…

The Acid House


Irvine Welsh - 1994
    Using a range of approaches from bitter realism to demented fantasy, Irvine Welsh is able to evoke the essential humanity, well hidden as it is, of his generally depraved, lazy, manipulative, and vicious characters. He specializes particularly in cosmic reversals--God turns a hapless footballer into a fly; an acid head and a newborn infant exchange consciousnesses with sardonically unexpected results--always displaying a corrosive wit and a telling accuracy of language and detail. Irvine Welsh is one hilariously dangerous writer and he is bound to create a sensation. Includes the following stories: "The Shooter""Eurotrash""Stoke Newington Blues""Vat '96""A Soft Touch""The Last Resort on the Adriatic""Sexual Disaster Quartet""Snuff""A Blockage in the System""Wayne Foster""Where the Debris Meets the Sea""Granny's Old Junk""The House of John Deaf""Across the Hall""Lisa's Mum Meets the Queen Mum""The Two Philosophers""Disnae Matter""The Granton Star Cause""Snowman Building Parts for Rico the Squirrel""Sport for All""The Acid House"A Smart Cunt: a novella

Popcorn


Ben Elton - 1996
    Wayne and Scout shoot to kill. In a single night they find out the hard way what's real and what's not, who's the hero and who's the villain. The USA watches slack-jawed as Bruce and Wayne together resolve some serious questions. Does Bruce use erection cream? Does art imitate life or does life simply imitate bad art? And most of all, does sugar-pie really love his honeybun?

The Guilty Die Twice: A Legal Thriller


Don Hartshorn - 2020
    

Revenge (aka The Stars’ Tennis Balls)


Stephen Fry - 2000
    The only thing that can be guaranteed is that it will be his next earth-movingly funny bestseller. And we are still pretty confidently saying it will not be about earthworm migration patterns in East Devon.This is the story of Ned Maddenstone, a nice young man who is about to find out just what hell it is to be one of the stars' tennis balls.  For Ned, 1978 seems a blissful year: handsome, popular, responsible and a fine cricketer, life is progressing smoothly for him, if not effortlessly. When he meets Portia Fendeman his personal jigsaw appears complete. What if her left-wing parents despise his Tory MP father? Doesn't that just make them star-crossed lovers? And surely, in the end, won't the Fendemans be won over by their happiness?  But, of course, one person's happiness is another's jealous spite. And spite is about to change Ned's life forever.  A promise made to a dying teacher and a vile trick played by fellow pupils rocket Ned from cricket captain to solitary confinement, from head boy to political prisoner. Twenty years later, Ned returns to London a very different man from the boy seized outside a Knightsbridge language college.  A man implacably focused on revenge. Revenge is a dish he plans to savour and serve to those who conspired against him, and to those who forgot him.

Pull Of The Moon


Diane Janes - 2010
    Haunted by echoes of a vanished summer which changed her life forever, Kate is forced to confront memories she would rather forget.

Crossroads Road


Jeff Kay - 2011
    She quickly makes an identical offer to all her children and their families: a large, custom-built home, and two million dollars cash. But there's a catch, a nasty hook hidden inside the bait. If the deal is accepted, they will be required to live together on a newly-created cul-de-sac in southern California, for the remainder of the matriarch's life — a woman Jovis sarcastically calls Sunshine. Not a chance! And that would only be the beginning of it, he knows. The rest of his wife's family is no prize, either. Nancy the bohemian earth child with organic, free-range armpits, Kevin the pompous scarf-wearing intellectual, Sue the 400-pound attention junkie who throws herself down flights of stairs for sympathy… Jovis sees them all as kooks, in one way or another, and they want him to live amongst them? Not for a million bucks! Or two million, even. But his defiance begins to fade when Jovis returns to his job, and realizes he's now there by choice. Crossroads Road is the first novel by Jeff Kay, proprietor of the popular humor site The West Virginia Surf Report! It is a rollicking comedy, perfect for fans of National Lampoon's Vacation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. An early reader called the book "relentlessly hilarious."

Shopgirl


Steve Martin - 2000
    She attempts to forge a relationship with middle-aged, womanizing, Seattle millionaire Ray Porter while being pursued by socially inept and unambitious slacker Jeremy.With more than 340,000 copies in print, Steve Martin's Shopgirl has landed on bestseller lists nationwide including: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, this story of modern day love and romance is a work of disarming tenderness.

Kill Your Friends


John Niven - 2008
    Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public - 'Yeah, those animals'.Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe ('New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn') searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.Kill Your Friends is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved - as long as you want it badly enough.