Killing Richard Dawson
Robin Baker
‘The phone rings. It’s Jesus. I listen to him speak and then hang up…’
In this darkly comic, slow-burn thriller, reality is blurred… and nothing can be taken for granted.
A gripping and poignant black comedy about love, friendship, booze, morality, death and a generation’s casual dissatisfaction with modern life. Sometimes, redemption lies in the darkest of places.
‘You don’t need to die to destroy yourself.’
Killing Richard Dawson is a brilliant fast-paced story with a shocking twist. It cleverly traverses the inner and outer worlds of the university student protagonist with wit and humour as he navigates his way through the minefields of loss, friendship and unrequited love.
Death is the only constant in his life, yet Robin Baker portrays it with an irreverence echoing Evelyn Waugh’s classic satire.
“…somehow doesn’t miss a beat, all the way to an ending that’ll knock you sideways.” – Nick Earls
Robin Baker
“…somehow doesn’t miss a beat, all the way to an ending that’ll knock you sideways.”
Nick Earls, award-winning author
“A startling, original voice on the crime scene… TO DIE FOR… a new crime writer you simply have to read.”
Booktopia Buzz (May, 2010)
“…takes the reader on an unsettling journey… A truly gripping read.”
Bookseller + Publisher magazine
“Catcher in the Rye meets Dexter…a coming-of-age tale injected with black humour.”
Reader’s comment
“…a dark, simmering tale told through the eyes of a 19-year-old sociopath… As he guides readers through his booze-fuelled journey of lonely self-destruction, [his] tale is told with black humour, moments of wit and horror simultaneously thrown into the mix.”
Sam Whitely, The West Australian
“Robin Baker’s narrator is so unpretentiously sincere about his desperation to avoid pain that I was grinning from the first lines… The pleasure of the novel is its darkly hilarious knack for capturing the lethargic insights of Gen Y, in a voice that Baker claims was an antidote to the teen television series Dawson’s Creek. Baker’s biggest fans will probably belong to the same generation, but anyone who enjoys the deadpan honesty of a smart teenager would be won over.”
Tim Kennedy Hanna, Australian Literary Review
“…such an intriguing book I couldn’t put it down… this book is excellent. 5 out of 5 stars.”
Andrew Wrathall, Fancy Goods
“…simmering, mysterious thriller… Baker’s strangely compelling voice reels you in… surprising twists and hairpin bends… a compulsive read.”
Gillian Bramley-Moore, The Courier Mail
“… a darkly comic story… Generation Y is often thought of as a generation with nothing to believe in. It’s a Nietzschean approach to life with more sex, interesting pants and even fewer ideals. In this novel, one member of the generation is given something to believe in: killing Richard Dawson… The humour in Killing Richard Dawson is sporadic. The darkness is not.”
Emma Young, The Sydney Morning Herald
“Killing Richard Dawson stitches the murderous sensibilities of television’s anti-hero Dexter to Andrew McGahan’s nihilistic slacker Gordon Buchanan, and plays its story out in a completely believable 21st-century suburban milieu. There may be a little too much Quentin Tarantino-like graphic violence thrown into the mix, but this is a surprisingly skilful first novel, promising a rosier future for [Robin] Baker than what is delivered to his unhappy protagonist.”
The Weekend Australian, Review
“…a succession of soulless social engagements and increasingly unhinged behaviour… There are shades of American Psycho but with a distinctly Australian air of suburban ennui…an ambitious novel, full of ambiguity…”
Greg Hassall, The Sun-Herald
“Killing Richard Dawson is the exploration of a young man with a sympathetic and difficult past trying to find his place in the world, depressed, confused and falling in love. It’s dark, it’s surprising and it’s strangely comic.”
Tracey Allen, Carpe Librum
“I loved this book from the first page..I enjoyed living in the world of Killing Richard Dawson for a few days. I hadn’t read anything by Robin Baker before but I am going in search of his other book as soon as I can. I would recommend this to anybody who likes coming of age stories or crime/psych thrillers.”
