John Niven’s debut novel is quite something. Its not often you come across a character so intrinsically unpleasant that reading about his exploits leaves you feeling somewhat claustrophobic. That is pretty much what sums up the experience of reading ‘Kill Your Friends’ a vicious little amorality tale of the life and times of a nineties A&R man who exists eye deep in the coke drenched world of the music business.

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Stephen Stelfox and if you are a young hopeful with dreams and aspirations of making it in the music business, worse still if you are young hopeful on the verge of signing a deal, then prey to God you don’t wind up with a character like this looking after your interests.
Set in 1997 the books leads us through the world in Stelfox’s eyes and trust me no matter how hard you think you can party Stelfox and his cohorts can party harder. It’s a damning tale of the Britpop years mingling aspect of real life into the fictionalised world of its lead character. Almost comic book in its proportionate excess you can’t help but wonder just how far the lines of truth and fiction blur as we see just how far greed and the will to succeed in the shark infested waters of the ‘biz’ will take a man.

Such is the sheer unpleasantness of Stelfox you want to look away on numerous occasions but find yourself compelled to return to the pages as he hoovers his way through the cocaine supplies of London, drinks its bars dry and ruins the lives of musical hopefuls along the way. His path darkens to the point where even murder becomes an option. This is the world of a non American Psycho and I can honestly say I can’t think of a character I have read in a long time that is so thoroughly vicious.

This is John Niven’s first novel and in his previous life he was the A&R man for Mogwai, you can only ponder what he saw to influence this work. Don’t take my word for it though, we have two copies to give away. All we require is you answer a simple question and you too could be reading about Stephen Stelfox’s ‘exploits and revelling in the memoirs of the late nineties and its musical highs and disastrous lows. You’ll even discover how a singer found a new personal use for a Brit statuette…

In order to be in with a chance of winning, just tell us what was the name of John Nevin’s first book.
The first to email us with a reply at adi@cix.co.uk will get themselves a copy free gratis.