The Spanish Sting – A Review

“Accountant Richard Jones witnesses the violent death of a property developer in a hotel in Spain. Can he report it to the Spanish police when he himself, has means, motive and opportunity, or will he let fate take him on a rollercoaster ride through the back streets of Malaga? As Richard’s past sins close in upon him, are his wife and his lover, neither aware of the existence of the other, about to discover the shocking truth about the man they love?” – The Spanish Sting, by Christopher F. McCarthy, via Lettertecbooks

 

The blurb alone is woeful.

But there is more to a novel than its cover and I wanted to give The Spanish Sting a chance to prove itself to me. I wanted to give a budding author a chance to find his readership now that he has done what I’ve been far too afraid to do: he put something that took countless hours to write out on the market.

He did so under his real name.

I appreciate the courage it must have taken to do that – not all potential readers are going to be polite and the author will need a spine of steel to handle the amount of rude readers that do exist in the world. Hopefully, most people will be polite when offering criticism on this new novel.

But I digress.

When I started reading The Spanish Sting, I soon discovered that the readership of this novel doesn’t include me.

I tried to finish reading it and soon found that I couldn’t. I persevered until I hit page 101 and found that I couldn’t keep going, that nothing I’d read so far made it imperative that I reach the last page. Honestly, the pages that I did read made me uncomfortable on countless occasions.

I look for the following factors whenever I sit down to read a novel:

• An interesting setting
• Characters that I can relate to or decent characters that I can root for
• A plot that makes sense
• The writing itself

It looks easy, doesn’t it?

But writing is hard and getting the right balance between the various components required to write a novel can be difficult. It can – and often will – take countless drafts to get a novel to a reasonable standard for publication and later distribution to the masses.

A perfect balance might not be in the cards even then.

Let us explore how The Spanish Sting handles the components listed above:

 

Setting

As a frequent reader of fantasy, I must admit it was somewhat strange to open a novel and find countless pages written with a strong Cork accent. That accent was a continuous presence and it proved to be somewhat distracting, but I wouldn’t claim it was a terrible thing altogether.

There should be no issue with having an accent and letting it saturate the pages of a novel that follows a Corkonian on the emotional rollercoaster through his past and present. I’d have issues were the character a British man born and raised in London and the novel still sounded like it was written from the streets of Cork.

The novel begins in Fuengirola in Spain. That is where Richard Jones witnesses the murder in a hotel. Aside from the fact that someone is going around murdering, there is no problem with opening a novel in Spain.

The section that follows the aftermath of the murder moves from Fuengirola to Malaga.

Other parts of the novel were set in streets familiar to me since I was a child. Mentions of streets that I often walk through were more than welcome. Actually, I experienced a small burst of warm appreciation – as I often do when something Irish or even Corkonian gets mentioned on television or in films. Ireland is a rather small country, and it feels nice to see our homeland mentioned in fiction.

 

Characters

This is where I start having issues with The Spanish Sting.

There are a limited number of characters that stand out to me. Largely, the men stood out for being despicable characters and impossible to root for. Coincidentally, the characters that proved to be the most likeable were women and made few appearances in the pages I’ve read.

I’d like to dive deeper into these characters:

 

Richard Jones

As we can see from the blurb, Richard Jones is the main character of the novel and is a qualified accountant. Given his profession in accountancy, one can deduce that he is at least somewhat intelligent.

Fair enough.

I’m quite fond of intelligent men and I like to see that intelligence explored on screen and in text – but there is much more to consider before determining whether Richard Jones is someone worth rooting for.

The back of the book describes him as “rough around the edges.”

Honestly, I find that description too generous. Certainly, the man isn’t soft. But he doesn’t even have a palatable centre. When I’m reading, I want to see a main character with at least three decent qualities and this man doesn’t qualify, though I’m sure the author intended him to be somewhat likeable at least. Perhaps this is the first of several factors confirming that I wasn’t the intended audience when the novel was published. Either way, I couldn’t find reasons to root for Richard Jones and I’d like to give an explanation.

The first mark against him is his infidelity, which is made apparent in the blurb itself.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for supporting people who practice non-monogamy, but that practice needs to be ethical – that means all parties involved need to be aware of what is happening and need to agree on it beforehand. Clearly, that is far from the case with Richard Jones and the situation he has with his wife and his bit on the side.

The second mark against him is the fact that he had to be bribed to spend time with another boy, who didn’t seem to be as bright as him and failed to respond to unspoken cues. That he wanted to punish that other child because a mass for a wedding went wrong, and a condescending snob with a huge wad of cash opted not to give them a tip for serving at the altar – in order to teach them that finances and performing a job well hold hands while walking down the loathsome streets of capitalism.

I understand that Richard grew up without money, but that is no excuse for being despicable to another child from a similar background and who appeared to have some difficulties. Both of them were broke. Neither of them deserved to be snubbed for a case of miscommunication and an ill-timed bell. But Jennings – the other boy, whose character we’ll review later – didn’t deserve to have Richard mistreat him because of that.

What happened was an accident.

The third mark against him is his ableism. Repeatedly, his internal narration refers to a man with walking difficulties as a “gimp.”

I don’t think I need to elaborate much further on that point: using offensive terms to refer to disabled people – even when it isn’t spoken out loud – is a sign of being a terrible human being.

The fourth mark against him is his general dishonesty, which goes hand-in-hand with his fervent capitalistic goals for the future. But being dishonest should be anathema to his position as an accountant.

During the story, Richard discovers that Jennings plans to divorce Priscilla (his wife) and use the companies he owns as a front – in order to prevent Priscilla from gaining half of his personal assets from the divorce proceedings. Richard lies while under oath because he knows doing so will bring in money, and potentially, more clientele from the upper echelon of Corkonian society; Jennings has become quite successful despite coming across a bit dim at first.

Lastly, Richard is a thief. But he wasn’t a stole-bread-because-he-was-starving thief. I would have forgiven and supported that decision. I stopped reading the novel when his internal narration admitted that he stole €100,000 from the woman (Jacinta) that he’d just married.

That…is a lot of negative qualities to swallow within the span of 100 pages.

Does Richard have positive qualities? Perhaps more is revealed deeper in the novel.

From what I’ve read so far, his discernible positive qualities are:

1. He didn’t commit the murder. But I’m not going to congratulate him for not murdering someone. Not murdering someone is easy; most people do it.

2. He tried to dissuade Jennings from divorcing his Priscilla…and then proceeded to obliterate the modicum of respect doing so developed when he suggested Jennings hire himself a whore and have an affair instead – like the rest of the elite.

 

James Jennings

Where do I even start with this man?

His first appearance was when he was a boy, and as I mentioned earlier: he didn’t come across as sharp and bright as Richard. Briefly, I suspected he might have some learning difficulties. But there is nothing wrong with that.

The problems I have with him arise when he is an adult:

Jennings forged a signature and stole €40,000 from Priscilla when putting down a deposit on some property; a situation that sounded somewhat like he’d been swindled when he was informing Richard about what he’d done. Normally, I’d feel bad over the swindling, but that disappeared because he’d stolen from his wife.

Jennings then proceeded to profit from those stolen funds. After he started coming into more money, he began acting like he was the best thing since sliced bread and bragged about it often.

His behaviour was grating.

It was also unnerving, how the character started to sound like a loathsome man we all hear too much about on the news: Donald Trump. Jennings is like an Irish version of him – right down to his sidling up to more influential people and his sexist attitude. When he began the divorce proceedings, it wasn’t because he and Priscilla were having marriage troubles or because he no longer loved her. He divorced her because he wanted to find a “fresh new squeeze.”

When Richard attempted to dissuade him from divorcing her, claiming that Priscilla had loved and supported him when he had nothing, Jennings cast subtle aspersions on her character – that she’d suspected all along that Jennings would bring in the money, and had supported him for that reason alone.

That it wasn’t because she loved him.

Jennings is also malicious. He said he’d treat Richard to food and drinks one evening, and then disappeared after he’d pushed Richard to drink more despite his reservations. Richard was left to handle a bill that he couldn’t afford and then was kicked out of the restaurant because he didn’t have sufficient funds.

I wouldn’t want him as a friend. I don’t want to root for him either.

I can’t stand his character.

No one with even a modicum of morals wants to read about an Irish version of Donald Trump walking around like he rules the roost and can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants.

 

Priscilla Jennings

There isn’t much I can write about this character. Priscilla featured seldom in the pages I’ve read. But what I do know is this:

1. She loved her husband before he ever had money; she believed there was good in him and he let her down.

2. She chose to support her husband in his endeavours. She did so even though he’d forged her signature and stolen tens of thousands from her. Perhaps that makes her naïve. Perhaps it shows that she has continued faith in humanity, or at least more faith in people than I do.

3. She expressed unspoken distaste when Richard called Jennings stupid in front of her. Doing so prompted an immediate apology; she wasn’t going to let one of her friends insult his mental capacities. That is something I’d want in a wife.

4. She is quick to provide words of support and encouragement to her friends.

5. Ultimately, despite her faith in humanity, she does have limits when it comes to how much people can walk all over her. When Richard lied in court during the divorce proceedings and left her with nothing, she ceased contact with him. She wasn’t willing to accept that behaviour and I’m glad: Priscilla deserved better.

 

Jacinta Jones

There is even less to write about Jacinta Jones – based on the pages that I read. Perhaps she featured more as the novel continued. From what I’ve seen so far, she was the faintest glimmer of sunlight in the life of Richard Jones and he didn’t deserve her.

Richard first saw her at the restaurant where Jennings tricked him. The pair didn’t interact apart from a few brief glances. Internally, Richard assumed she was sleeping with an old guy, who turned out to be her uncle.

The pair meet again later in his office. It turned out her uncle was the man Richard was leasing from and her uncle wanted to terminate the contract. But she was willing to put in a good word for him.

She also believed that how he was treated at the restaurant was terrible.

She went against the wishes of her uncle and married below her social class. It suggests that social standing doesn’t matter to her and I admire that. I’m not going to congratulate her for it…but I admire it.

 

Those are the characters I wanted to discuss in this review. There are other male characters that feature in The Spanish Sting, but this review is longer than I expected it to be and I have no desire to continue writing about characters forever.

Now I’d like to discuss:

 

Plot

Personally, I thought the apparent plot of the novel made no sense.

Richard didn’t commit the murder and he is still freaking out. Granted: most people would freak out after witnessing a violent murder in a hotel.

I know I’d freak out.

But most people wouldn’t start planning to dispose of the body, because going to the police and reporting the murder would be the wisest and most moral course of action in the long run. He might have had opportunity, and he might have had means and motive to murder the victim…but Richard didn’t murder him and that is what matters to the plot.

Richard is innocent and the police would discover that in the end.

It would make more sense for Richard to flee Fuengirola and keep running, if the murderer was hunting him down in order to tie up loose ends. No one wants a witness to their crimes to survive and inform the police.

I don’t understand the apparent plot as it stands.

 

The Writing

The novel is written in first person from the beginning, and whether that sits well with a reader comes down to a fusion of personal taste within the reader and the discernible skill of the author.

I often dislike reading first person narratives…but there are times when I approve of the decision. I approved when reading the Hunger Games because it was handled well. Perhaps the same might have happened with The Spanish Sting, if the main character had been the least bit tolerable.

What bugged me the most about The Spanish Sting was the fact that the author went to the trouble of spelling out laughter manually, instead of searching for suitable descriptors that could have translated the tone of laughter quite well.

No one wants to read through almost a whole page of “ha” and “haw.”

I felt the failure to find suitable descriptors suggested a certain amount of sloppiness. I’d suggest taking a moment to choose a list of descriptors would suit a character best and then using whichever one suits a given situation best in future.

 

Final Rating

Since the novel did include at least one character that I could support and there was no issue with setting, I’d give The Spanish Sting:

1/5