Set in the blood-drenched chaos of Beerlight, "a blown circuit, where to kill a man was less a murder than a mannerism," Dante Cubit and his pill-popping sidekick, the Entropy Kid, waltz into First National Bank with some serious attitude and a couple of snub guns. Murderous, trigger-happy cops, led by the doughnut-chomping redneck police chief, arrive in force, firing indiscriminately into the crowd gathered outside. Surrender or capture is out of the question. Dante's beloved, the murderous assassin Rosa Control — packing a not-so-small arsenal — prowls the streets, trying to engineer her man's escape. Will Dante slip past the forces of corruption and disorder to join his Rosa? What happens next is a tangled mess of reality and virtual reality.
From Booklist
Aylett draws on sf and crime-fiction conventions in an experimental novel about a future when life is so cheap that crime is a form of recreation. Dante Cubit, more of a conceit than a character, holds up a bank, making allusions to detective stories all the while and engagingly slipping back in time 15 minutes when a guard sounds the alarm. Dante is dead, but by going back in time, he lives again in a slightly different reality. Once more the robbery goes sour because of the faulty virtual-reality model Dante studied, which leaves him trapped in the bank building when the escape route he memorized turns out not to be there. Later, Dante finds himself in a mall with his sidekick, the Entropy Kid, wondering whether they have been arrested. Other characters include gun moll Rosa Control, pulled in for questioning by the philosophical cops. A mockery of a novel, appealing to postmodern sensibilities more than to the general reader per se. John Mort
