The Graffiti Killer

<h1 class=ql-align-center><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>KIRKUS REVIEW AUGUST 8 2025 </span></h1><h1 class=ql-align-center><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>THE GRAFFITI KILLER</span></h1><p class=ql-align-center><span style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>by </span>David Milnes<span style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A</span></p><p class=ql-align-center><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)><em>Readers won't soon forget this dark little novel.</em></strong></p><p><span style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Milnes' novel follows a disillusioned 69-year-old art afficionado who embarks on a quest to push back against a cultural tide of trash.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The creepy nameless narrator is a failed actor of surpassing paleness (he was Ghoul 14 in the 1971 Charlton Heston movie </span><em style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The Omega Man</em><span style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>) and a former band promoter who once worked on Barry Manilow's U.K. tours. Now living in Spain with a detestably superficial woman who considers herself an artist-she paints what he describes as kitsch rubbish-something inside the man (who deeply loves art and its connection to culture and history) snaps. Armed with a rifle he sets off on a mission to rid the world of trasheteers those he sees as villains forcing trash culture down upon him. His first victims are a group of graffiti artists who have defiled iconic locations all over Europe that have been featured in famous paintings. (In Spain you were in the landscapes of Goya Bustillo Salomón Velasquez in France you were in the landscapes of Lorraine Monet Cezanne Lavieille.) After that he targets more well-known artists like the now 81-year-old Manilow who is in London on a tour and novelist Bernadine Evaristo the president of the Royal Society of Literature to name a few. Equal parts unhinged manifesto thinly veiled social commentary and serial killer's meandering travelogue through Europe this circular narrative is decidedly disturbing-particularly with real figures like Evaristo and others being targeted for death. (Readers will never experience a Barry Manilow song in quite the same way again.) But it's the depth of depraved character development that truly powers this twisted tale. The narrator's skewed view of the world as seen through the lens of his frustration and anger is unsettlingly almost understandable especially considering his many failures both personal and professional throughout his largely unfulfilled life.</span></p><p></p><p class=ql-align-center><strong style=color: rgba(71 70 70 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Readers won't soon forget this dark little novel.</strong></p>