Cath
Staincliffe, Manchester Evening News
When unemployed Jen goes for an interview for a post as a researcher at the BBC she walks in on a scene of mayhem: a naked man stands on top of a ladder, his most private parts attached to a chain and his colleagues seemingly incapable of talking him down. But Jen recognises the man from his distinctive piercing as Stapled Stan, a regular on the S&M scene, and she persuades him not to jump. Stan, married to a high profile Tory MP, is being blackmailed and Jen is enlisted to try and find out who’s calling the shots. Assisted by fellow members of the Nirvana Housing Co-op, a handful of outlandish and damaged individuals who still manage to function as a collective, Jen becomes enmeshed in a world of murky dealing. Sustained by vegetarian feasts, regular spliffs and occasional flurries of direct action, the motley crew discover the trail leads them to the aquatic shop, Koi Korner. When Jen’s friends are on the receiving end of some very ugly violence things get a lot heavier. Comic crime caper from Alper who writes with panache and affection about the alternative worlds of co-operative living, new agers and fetishists. She’s very funny and … delivers a very entertaining read. A fresh voice we should hear more from.
When unemployed Jen goes for an interview for a post as a researcher at the BBC she walks in on a scene of mayhem: a naked man stands on top of a ladder, his most private parts attached to a chain and his colleagues seemingly incapable of talking him down. But Jen recognises the man from his distinctive piercing as Stapled Stan, a regular on the S&M scene, and she persuades him not to jump. Stan, married to a high profile Tory MP, is being blackmailed and Jen is enlisted to try and find out who’s calling the shots. Assisted by fellow members of the Nirvana Housing Co-op, a handful of outlandish and damaged individuals who still manage to function as a collective, Jen becomes enmeshed in a world of murky dealing. Sustained by vegetarian feasts, regular spliffs and occasional flurries of direct action, the motley crew discover the trail leads them to the aquatic shop, Koi Korner. When Jen’s friends are on the receiving end of some very ugly violence things get a lot heavier. Comic crime caper from Alper who writes with panache and affection about the alternative worlds of co-operative living, new agers and fetishists. She’s very funny and … delivers a very entertaining read. A fresh voice we should hear more from.
Big
Issue
A
quick-paced and witty trawl through London’s sub-cultures.
Publishing
News
A
mix of funny, sad and astute.
Zaria
Shreef, New Books Magazine
A
funny, decidedly unpretentious thriller with a sub-cultural cast of
characters and a fantastic heroine … From the first page NIRVANA
BITES is a gripping, witty and distinctive read. It may stick in the
throat of the old-school, anti-pc brigade, but its cast of lesbians,
New Agers, animal rights activists and drop-outs is an engaging and
refreshing alternative to the usual cast of fictional characters …
An education for those who have no inkling of the S&M, drug and
anti-capitalist scenes, it’s great fun.
Marcia
Wellington, The Beaver
A
hilarious whodunit set in the backdrop of the netherworld … A side
to humankind that is dark and sinister yet, in spite of the negative
environment, love and a true sense of family prevail. Woven into all
this is a mystery to die for (some did) that kept me guessing to the
end … It allowed me a peek into the dark, disturbing world of S&M,
junkies and the otherwise fringe elements of society … A series of
comical twists and turns … NIRVANA BITES is a definite must read
for all mystery buffs. Otherwise it’s a good/funny/sad/whimsical
book for those of us who just like a good read.
Tangled
Web
Bursting with energy, NIRVANA BITES is a brilliantly observed comic
triumph, and heralds the arrival of a highly individual and hilarious
new voice. Give Me a Break
Becoming a bit fuzzy? Here’s a in yer face tale
of blackmail, villainy, bondage and housing co-ops that really kicks.
Get down to a bit of amateur sleuthing and have some laughs by all
means, but wake up to what you know is really going on.
Daily
Mirror
Look out for NIRVANA BITES by Debi Alper – dark comedy as Jen’s
job at the BBC leads to bondage and blackmail
Families SouthEast
Full of wild and whacky underground characters, involved in a weird
world of eco-terrorists and S&M.
Magenta
Publisher
Gripping stuff.
Gwyn Griffiths, Morning Star
Grim
lives of desperate people told with love and humour. A
20th-century Welsh poet wrote that fiction, which is all lies, is
closer than the historian to perfect truth. By that definition, the
same would be true of the politician’s statistics. Those thoughts
spin through the mind while reading Trading
Tatiana, Debi Alper’s pacey, funny, heart-warming and ultimately
tragic second novel.
It is released at a time when Tony
Blair and Michael Howard are out-bidding each other
to show us all how tough they are – or will be – on
asylum-seekers. They
should read this novel. This is a political novel by a committed
writer, writing from first-hand knowledge and detailed research. The
snippets of information about the scale of what is done by those who
live off the misery of others is enraging and heart-breaking. This is
about the grim existence of desperate people clinging on at the
brink, yet told with great humour and love. It is brilliantly written
with all the underlying tensions of a terrific page-turner. Get out
there, buy it and read it.
Catherine
Hunt, Shotsmag
Here’s a welcome new crime writer … Alper’s theme isn’t original – she uses the current favourite crime, the traffic in prostitutes and the former iron curtain thugs who smuggle in naive, young girls, beat them up, terrorise them and then become their pimps – but her way of telling is refreshing. Her heroine and narrator is a thirty-something, ex-drug addict living the twentieth floor of a vile block of flats in the Old Kent Road. Jo Cooper has every right to be depressed and cynical but her voice is self deprecating, honest and optimistic. She vividly describes the sleaze and mess around her from the filthy, often broken lift, to the street battles between rival gangs. Multi-cultural London is her city and she loves everything about it but it is dirty, noisy and overcrowded so if people seek asylum there, she figures the place they leave must be hellish. Alper has a gift for voices; she can do Rasta, East End, posh, stroppy, anything at all. Her funniest scenes are those in neighbours’ kitchens when the women get together with their kids and chat. These are real characters not stereotypes and not to be disdained because they live in a grotty place. Moreover, they react to events and their thinking changes. She understands suspense, too. The pace is fast; as Jo gets further and further embroiled into what is patently a very dangerous situation, the tension increases, new characters get involved and the plot, as the cliché goes, thickens very satisfactorily.
Here’s a welcome new crime writer … Alper’s theme isn’t original – she uses the current favourite crime, the traffic in prostitutes and the former iron curtain thugs who smuggle in naive, young girls, beat them up, terrorise them and then become their pimps – but her way of telling is refreshing. Her heroine and narrator is a thirty-something, ex-drug addict living the twentieth floor of a vile block of flats in the Old Kent Road. Jo Cooper has every right to be depressed and cynical but her voice is self deprecating, honest and optimistic. She vividly describes the sleaze and mess around her from the filthy, often broken lift, to the street battles between rival gangs. Multi-cultural London is her city and she loves everything about it but it is dirty, noisy and overcrowded so if people seek asylum there, she figures the place they leave must be hellish. Alper has a gift for voices; she can do Rasta, East End, posh, stroppy, anything at all. Her funniest scenes are those in neighbours’ kitchens when the women get together with their kids and chat. These are real characters not stereotypes and not to be disdained because they live in a grotty place. Moreover, they react to events and their thinking changes. She understands suspense, too. The pace is fast; as Jo gets further and further embroiled into what is patently a very dangerous situation, the tension increases, new characters get involved and the plot, as the cliché goes, thickens very satisfactorily.
Cath
Staincliffe, author of the Sal Kilkenny mysteries and creator of Blue
Murder, starring Caroline Quentin
‘My
big fear is insanity. Everything else comes a long way behind.’
Ex-addict Jo Cooper is lonely, vulnerable and genuinely kind. She’s
also brave and daft enough to offer sanctuary to a troubled teenage
runaway. With compassion, humour and a strong sense of social justice
Alper takes us for a walk away from the mainstream and into the
seedier, needier, weirder side of London. An alternative,
contemporary crime scene with the authentic flavour of life in the
new, mean millennium yet there’s hope and belief too, in the
potential of friendship and the possibilities of ‘families’ we
choose rather than those we are born into.
Roz
Clarke, Chatshow.net
Debi
Alper’s second novel, like “Nirvana Bites”, is set in the
downtrodden areas of South London she knows well, areas of desolate
high rise housing and vibrant street markets where silent desperation
and glorious optimism walk hand in hand. Humour, tragedy, poverty and
lawlessness are the daily diet of those who live in within the
sprawling urban community and all these elements are evident in
Debi’s blackly comic crime thriller. Debi writes with comic
affection about the alternative worlds of co-operative living, new
agers and fetishists. She has known the strong women who battle
against the odds to survive and are knit into a supportive
sisterhood. She has sympathy not condemnation for the junkies and the
home boys. Debi has revealed that initially she wrote in episodes to
read out at her writers’ group, that she didn’t know she was
writing a novel. There’s something almost Dickensian in this
approach, as there is in the element of social documentary she
includes, in her characterisation and in the landscape against which
her novels are set. Her photographer’s eye gives her writing a
depth of detail and a reality that makes the story both stark and
rich … her voice is fresh and bright and laced with a darkly
delicious anarchic sense of humour.
Tangledweb
Sparkling,
fast paced and blackly comic.
Martin
Tierney, Glasgow Herald
The
second novel from the London-based writer is an unorthodox mix of
comedy, kitchen-sink drama and dark thriller… Alper… move[s] the
narrative seamlessly from the comic opportunities sexual perversion
provides, to the darker, violent side of prostitution and sexual
slavery.
Zoe Walker,
South London Press
Alper’s portrayal of South London living is perhaps as honest a portrait as has yet been painted.
Alper’s portrayal of South London living is perhaps as honest a portrait as has yet been painted.
Fiona
Hook, Big Issue
It’s
funny how one thing leads to another. If Jo Cooper, ex-heroin addict
and incurable helper of waifs and strays hadn’t decided to let the
strange man she found on her roof in buttockless S&M gear into
her top-floor flat in horrible, rundown Boddington Heights, she’d
never have had enough money to take her neighbour’s kids to
Brighton for the day. So she’d never have rescued a mystery girl
from the thugs who were pursuing her, and the course of her life
would have been different. The mysterious woman turns up at her flat
… exposing Jo to a strange new world of illegal immigration and
prostitution, where any victim who escapes must be ruthlessly hunted
down. Its utter savagery is thrown into sharp relief by the everyday
kindness of neighbours who band together to watch each other’s
kids, the sweetness of agoraphobic Pete whose handmade candles Jo
earns her living selling and the astonishing generosity and
willingness to help of the housing co-operative she stumbles into in
her quest for her visitor’s real identity. In trying to save her
mystery guest, Jo finds her own salvation.
Love
Reading
A blackly comic thriller where a London market trader finds herself plunged into the world of illegal immigration and teenage prostitution.
A blackly comic thriller where a London market trader finds herself plunged into the world of illegal immigration and teenage prostitution.
LATEST
7
Trading
Tatiana is a rapidly-moving novel that blends black comedy, soft
politics and an array of well-developed characters to form a book
that is immensely
entertaining and packed with unexpected twists.
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