REVIEWS FOR KING OF THE CROSS
“Dapin is playing to an audience ready for yet more true-crime revelations about Sydney’s nether regions. What Dapin offers is all the more complex and intense for being fiction. Watch out for Mendoza’s vastly entertaining lecture on the five types of nicknames: the alliterative, the rhyming, the traditional, the ironic and the redundant. And heed his warning: beware of men who have no nicknames. Nobody in this book is quite who they seem, nickname or not. It’s a wild, macho ride.”
The Sydney Morning Herald
“Dapin does a fine job of interweaving Mendoza’s reminiscences of past crimes and crimes with a brutal story of current criminal intrigue. Although fiction, Dapin’s no-holds barred history of Kings Cross and the city’s criminal past rings true and his portrayal of modern Sydney is also brutally honest.”
Canberra Times
“If you’ve ever enjoyed journalist Mark Dapin’s writing over a Saturday morning coffee then you’re in for a treat. If you’ve never read Mark Dapin’s work before, you’re in for an even bigger treat, because as great a features writer as his is, as a novelist he’s amazing. Think Nick Hornby on a meth binge and you’ve got the style. Think Underbelly 2, but so much more real, and you’ve got the content … The novel explores the history of the Cross over four decades and makes quite a few statements about Australian society along the way. But it’s the murders and plots and surprise twists that make this work, along with the relationship that develops between the King and Nick. Fun and compelling and just thinly veiled enough to make it so real.”
Melbourne Times
“True crime has never been as honest as this … There’s a lot to like and engage with here – simply because the thugs are so believable … Dapin has a particular knack for conveying the sense of the godfather character – all charm and nice suits on the surface, with a rabid pit bull simmering underneath.”
West Australian
“A fantastic work of crime fiction … with author Mark Dapin constructing a brilliantly funny yet violent and intriguing novel … an impelling read … Gripping until the end, King of the Cross provides an insightful view of Sydney’s darker side.”
Launceston Examiner
“As magnetic, colourful and terrifying as full-force road trauma.”
Geelong Advertiser
“As fast, furious and fun as the Cross on a Saturday night.”
Men’s Health
“Dapin’s research is fabulous and his thorough crafting of Mendoza’s character, along with lovingly written dialogue, has the ageing entrepreneur almost leaping off the page. Seedy characters (all with hilarious names), humour and plenty of sleaze makes this book an entertaining read.”
Burnie Advocate
“Will have you rolling in laughter … Dapin’s dynamic and droll and style brings something altogether different to the new wave of true crime books and TV spin-offs. It’s what makes this an outrageously uninhibited account of Sydney’s most infamous nether world.”
Sun-Herald
“Mark Dapin’s King of the Cross is edgy and wildly entertaining, salacious and, at times, downright sordid.”
Australian Jewish News
“Profane, funny and sometimes confronting … This book is not for the easily offended. Hilarious … outrageous … It’s a wild, macho ride.”
The Sydney Morning Herald
“Anyone familiar with Sydney’s ‘The Cross’ and its lowlife highlights will feel right at home in this backstreet brawl of a novel. Names have been changed to protect the guilty and, possibly, the author, but this tale rings as true as a fire alarm. Like a standover man with a hangover, Dapin’s debut demands attention.”
Qantas the Australian Way, November 2009
“Sydney’s Kings Cross is Australia’s most infamous den of iniquity. It breeds sinners, resurrects the odd saint and also gives rise to once-in-a-generation crime lords. Now imagine that of these characters felt to need to reveal the details of their sordid life. Dapin has a black heart short through with slivers of humour, and parallels with a real-life crime boss are undeniable in this cracking crime caper.”
Madison, December 2009
“Punctuated by lacerating comic dialogue and scenes of explosive violence, full of the kind of inventive word play and thinly veiled social commentary that make Florida-based crime author Carl Hiaasen so much fun to read – and, as with Hiaasen, there’s ample substance beneath the dialogue.”
The Age, October 10th 2009
“Violent, funny and poignant by turn; if you liked Underbelly, you’ll love this”
Grazia Magazine, October 19th 2009
“I laughed out loud … The publisher’s blurb says the book is ‘crime fiction as it’s never been written before’, and that is a fair call. For starters the level of sex and profanity makes Nick Cave, in his new novel The Death of Bunny Munro, look like the choir boy he once was. The prose is as colourful as a Sydney racing identity, or Dapin’s heavily tattooed arms, and there are some brilliant linguistic gymnastics. Dapin brings to the book the quirky, insightful turn of phrase that makes his newspaper columns for Good Weekend mandatory reading … a funny, over-the-top, well-written read.”
Stephen Romei, Australian Literary Review
“Dapin is a writer who punches with both hands and winks at the crowd while he’s at it. His protagonist is part punk, part pug, part poet – an anti-hero who reveals his own back story as he gets the King of the Cross to unravel the eerily familiar tale of his unlikely rise. Truth might be stranger than fiction but in the hardened artery of Dapin’s Kings Cross, alleged fiction rings truer than the alleged facts. A cunning stunt that could get him knee-capped.”
Andrew Rule, author of Underbelly
“Explosive, gritty, hilarious and – best of all – truly original. This book detonates while you’re reading it.”
Rob Drew
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