Fargo Hawkins dropped out of school. Now he is a gardener. He's twenty
years old, and works for Harry Swaine, an abusive butcher with a chain
of shops on the south coast of England. After witnessing a fight between
Harry and Anne (his wife) Fargo steals a car and together he, Anne and a
dog called Radar go on the run. They have £9,653, a bag of apples, a
penknife and three bottles of wine. An incandescent Harry, a firm of
private detectives, and their emotions chase them across the country. In
no time they are a newspaper headline - Kidnap Fury of the Smoking
Lovers.
After a series of close calls, Anne and Fargo pitch up at a caravan site
in North Wales, where they find work and lie low. But a man as
possessive as Harry is not to be denied. Their journey becomes one of
revelation for all three of them as their relationships move from pure
emotion to something more contemplative. Journey's end for Fargo and
Anne is the Llyn peninsula and the cottage of late poet R.S. Thomas. For
Harry, it is somewhere darker.
Kidnap Fury of the Smoking Lovers is classic Benson: imaginative,
inventive, page-turning, full of lyrical images and unexpected turns in
the plot., confirming his place as one of the most individual voices in
modern British fiction.
