tonikay 's review for:

Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard

3.0

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Rounded up from 2.5 stars. This is a book that has been on my to read list for quite some time. It was a bit of a frustrating read. The premise of a man going to “save” his brother who has been falsely accused of murder and has pled guilty sounded interesting. The cast of characters of ex-pats living in Spain were interesting. The middle section of the book, where the brother, Charles, gets caught up in the wild life on the coast lost me a bit. Toward the end there’s some philosophic questioning of “is crime ok or even necessary to roust people out of their isolated lives and create a sense of community”. I probably should have been able to predict the ending, but I just don’t think I cared enough at that point. That said, most of the writing was good; characters interesting.