Masthead
One of my photos

Christopher Brookmyre

June 1st, 2005 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

The other day I was in Sussex Stationers in town and saw a new book by Christopher Brookmyre on the shelves. I read one of his books late last year having never heard of him before. I was actually looking for Christopher Buckley, but there was nothing by him in stock, and the Brookmyre books caught my eye so I thought I would try one.

I enjoyed it so much that I put a few more of them on my Xmas list and then bought up the remaining back catalogue in February. The books are very Scottish, but do not go too far with the language, so us English people can still understand them. They are crime thrillers, but with lots of humour and satire in them – similar in some ways to Carl Hiaasen.

The best thing is that the author must be about my age and has similar interests, which are reflected in his characters. There are loads of references to indie and punk music and computers which are absolutely spot-on. The casual use by characters of terms like “leet speek” or “404-ing” are not explained, there is no concession to less technical readers, which makes a change from having to put up with patronising explantions of terms, although I guess a less nerdy reader will still appreciate the books for the humour, pace and intricate plots.

Only yesterday I noticed that the author has his own website, so I had a look, and its great. Its not huge, but its very human. There is a section for each of his books with the cover, blurb from the back and a selection of reviews. The way he organises the reviews is that he summarises them as three lists – headed “Good“, “Awright” and “Shite” where he lists the papers which gave good reviews, the papers which gave so-so reviews and the papers which gave bad reviews. There is then a selection of quotes from reviews (with his own headline for them) and he doesn’t shy away from listing quotes which slag off him or the books. Having said that, he does take the opportunity to respond to some of the criticism…

Some reviews quoted are:

“I didn’t need to read it to know it was shite” Colin Waters, Sunday Herald.

and my favourite

Most ironically noirish instance of a journalist blindly stumbling upon a vital clue when it is tragically too late:
“If he decided to move on from his love affair with low brow… then he might one day aspire to literature.
But perhaps he doesn’t want to.” Peter Jinks, The Herald

I get the feeling that Brookmyre enjoys the bad reviews more than the good ones.

If you haven’t read any CB books why not take a risk with the first one “Quite Ugly One Morning”? (“Deeply unpleasant and thoroughly nasty… the novel makes for somewhat tedious and disappointing reading.” Allan Laing, The Herald) I’ll be surprised if you can resist reading all the rest, despite what the Herald thinks of it.

Or failing that, just have a look at the website and find some odd stuff like a couple of short stories and a piece about the rules for playground football

And the title of the new book? “All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye”.

There is no way I could have waited 6 months for that to appear in paperback!

Tags: ····

No Comments so far ↓

Like the collective mind of the Daily Mail, comments are closed.