John Niven's Kill Your Friends is a hilarious dark comedy that takes as its starting point the famous Hunter S. Thompson quote about the music business-- which bears repeating for the few who haven't heard it-- "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Niven served a stint in A&R at a British record label, and here he paints a first-person portrait of a truly loathsome specimen of the species, a coke-snorting, whore-mongering, back-stabbing hypocrite who is completely happy with who he is. He just despises everyone else.

Every aspiring musician should read his second chapter, which is directly addressed toward the people who send their music into A&R departments. The utter contempt the protagonist feels toward these people and their dreams is a direct product of the power he wields, which, in turn, is a result of the capriciousness and bad taste of the public combined with the venality of his corporate superiors.

And then, there's a negative side. Our protagonist takes matters into his own hands with a proactive solution when he is passed over for a promotion. He kills his colleague. From this crime flows a series of escalating, horrific and comic crises that he somehow manages to turn to his own advantage.