Whoop! Whoop! by Icy Thug NutzMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A lot of crime novels start with things like a gorgeous dame walking into a hard boiled private detective’s office or a world weary cop being called to a brutal crime scene. This one kicks off with a guy thinking his dick has exploded and then later throwing a tray of human feces into another man’s face at a MacDonald’s.
Hey, it’s called Whoop! Whoop!, and the lead character is a Juggalo. It isn’t like I was expecting it to be The Maltese Falcon going into it.
Magnetz is a guy living in Phoenix who can’t hold a job, and he’s pretty much a professional dumbass. The only things he’s got going for him is his adorable young daughter, and his love of the band Insane Clown Posse has given him a family among their dedicated fans, the Juggalos. After a lifetime of bad choices, Magnetz tops himself when he tries to pull a revenge prank and accidentally throws his own crap into another man’s face. Unfortunately, Magnetz got the wrong guy, and the person he shit spackled turns out to be a blood thirsty ex-cop named Murda Killa who just got out of prison, and now Magnetz has to flee for his life and try to find a way out of the mess he created as Murda Killa hunts him.
I’m not a fan of ICP, and I’d generally agree with the idea that a person who throws a bunch of feces on another person pretty much deserves whatever they get. So why read a book that asks me to sympathize with a Juggalo poop flinger? A little bird told me that the author Icy Thug Nutz is actually Johnny Shaw, and that’s a guy I actually trust to tell a story like this and make it funny instead of just gross. Although in fairness, it is pretty gross.
Still Shaw has the knack of writing stupid people doing stupid, disgusting things and making it entertaining. That’s exactly what he’s done here with this fast paced farce, and at a time when I needed some laughs it hit the spot. Even with all the gross insanity going on in this book, Shaw manages to give Magnetz some emotional depth so that you actually do feel bad for the big doofus even if the whole situation was his own fault.
It’s a little odd to read this after Shaw’s last book The Southland, which was a very serious and mature novel that dug into the world of undocumented Mexican workers being exploited in the US. It shows that he’s the kind of writer who can a lot of different things, and he does them all well.
Public Service Announcement: I got a free copy of this for review, and I'm told that it isn't for sale on Amazon. If anyone is interested it can be found on the publisher's website.
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