- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown & Company (22 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0316726141
- ISBN-13: 978-0316726146
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 138,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Be My Enemy
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
By now, readers know what to expect from the remarkable Mr Brookmyre, and Be My Enemy has all the hallmarks of his caustic wit. The protagonist of his earlier books, the wry Jack Parlabane, makes a welcome reappearance, faced with an intriguing professional problem: he is to take part in a weekend of "corporate teambuilding" in the comfortable surroundings of a secluded estate. But quite what sort of course is this? Jack's instincts as a no-holds-barred hack, skilled at uncovering unpalatable truths, warn him that something unusual is in the offing--but he's not quite prepared for the extremely dangerous sideshow that is to accompany the corporate makeovers.
This is wonderfully abrasive stuff, full of the scabrous insights that we read Brookmyre for, and it's good to see ideas shoehorned into the satirically biting prose; while never neglecting the crucial task of keeping us turning those pages, Brookmyre makes some sharp points here; one of them being that we all harbour certain fascist tendencies, stifling a desire to put paid to those who go against us. The Highland country house in Be My Enemy functions as a hot house in which certain ideas along these lines can be explored--and Brookmyre's conclusions are just as likely to upset politically correct leftwingers as they are to ruffle the feathers of staunch conservatives. But don't get the idea that this is any kind of a tract: Brookmyre is a man who knows that ideas in novels must always be at the service of the narrative and that's very much the case here. Jack Parlabane's one-liners are as spot-on as ever, and the juggling of violence and black humour is as precisely judged as we expect from this writer. --Barry Forshaw
Review
'Sharply satirical and poignantly funny, this is a gripping and highly entertaining read' Time Out 'Chris Brookmyre is a genius' Mirror 'Brookmyre has no equal' Maxim 'Brookmyre is a brilliant satirist...an absolute must read' Punch 'Exhilarating linguistic fluency and keenly subversive intelligence' Scotland on Sunday
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jack Parlabane returns to confront Highland Country Hotel slaughter (no reference to Mrs P's maiden name). With Tim Vale in tow Parlabane is invited to participate in a management/team-building weekend. After a surprisingly positive start the weekend descends into chaos. An extreme right-wing group of psychopaths and human-safari hunters attempts to turn the Hotel into a slaughter house leaving Vale and to a lesser extent Parlabane and Co. to fight for their lives.
Vale is a marvellously wrought character with support from the familiar Parlabane. Here Brookmyre fleshes Vale out a little without exploding the enjoyable mystery of the gentleman-agent. The plot twists unexpectedly in places and there is the odd bit of evil ingenuity from vale and Parlabane. Brookmyre leads us by the hand a little at the start, recounting some of Parlanbane's previous adventures in a manner that has clearly irritated some of the other reviewers. I'd suspect this introductory material is at the behest of agent/publisher. Nevertheless, the book contains much originality and many of the supposed resemblances to "One Fine Day" are superficial or can be forgiven. I've re-read Be my Enemy once already and would argue the gems it contains clearly outweigh the disappointments. Hard to decide on whether this is a 4/5 or 3/5. I've gone with 3/5 because ultimately it doesn't rank with "One Fine Day" or "A Big Boy Did it" (to which it is most comparable).
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this to be laugh out loud funny in places, and any book that can do that has to be worthy of a good review.
It may have a similar plot line to 'One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night', but to me that is a bit like complaining that Bond is always saving the world.
I found this to be the most enjoyable Brookmyre so far. Expect entertainment and enjoyment (the main reasons for reading Mr Brookmyre's work surely?!) rather then an overly complicated murder mystery.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was the first Christopher Brookmyre I read, though I have since read several more. In doing so I found that although they were all enjoyable, none were anything like Be My Enemy. In general I would categorise Brookmyre's work as satirical, witty thrillers, with clever plots and characters that are believable, if a little extreme. Be My Enemy is full-on farce in the vein of Tom Sharpe, with a few political rants thrown in. The plot is ridiculous, the characters often react to events in a non-believable way and much of the humour is based on shock value.
Having no pre-conceptions about what the author was trying to achieve I was happy to go along with this and had a great laugh along the way. I think the reason this book has had a lot of low ratings is that people read it having read other Brookmyres first and were expecting it to be something it's not.
Having no pre-conceptions about what the author was trying to achieve I was happy to go along with this and had a great laugh along the way. I think the reason this book has had a lot of low ratings is that people read it having read other Brookmyres first and were expecting it to be something it's not.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Another cracker
How does CB do it? It may seem on the face of it a bit along the lines of One fine Day, dark and witty and bloody and hysterical and mad. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dillon the Villain
The Best One!
I first read this when it came out , borrowed from the library. Loved every word of it and couldn't wait to read more by Brookmyre. Read more
Published 12 months ago by bezza star
Brookmyre's goriest yet
Brookmyre returns to his original protagonist, journalist Jack Parlabane for this novel, although a lot of the other characters get a chance to shine. Read more
Published 16 months ago by J. R. Johnson-Rollings
Cracking Good Yarn
Cant understand the lower star rating on this book, maybe its not the strongest Brookmyre book, but it certainly knocks most other authors in the genre out of the water
Published 17 months ago by Anonymous
good for a laugh
didn't like it much at first but after about fifty or sixty pages started getting really into it,a sort of a modern day agatha christie but a bit more jokey and blokey. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2010 by tubby barton
Brilliant (but twisted) fun
The central idea behind this novel is simple but entertaining. Like the only other Brookmyre I have read up to now, it just screams 'film script' at me. Read more
Published on 29 Nov 2007 by Eric Ambleside
A reasoable Brookmyre read
I've got every Christopher Brookmyre book having been introduced to him by a friend who was a fan a good while ago. Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2006 by Mr. Terence Jones
Laugh till you're seriously Ill
Team-building with a difference! Brookmyer once again has produced a book delicately balanced between sick and dark humour and it made me hyperventilate with laughter. Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2006 by "jwigster"
Has done a lot better....
Well, I got through to the end of it. There were plenty of barriers in the way though - leaden writing for much of the first 2/3 at least, largely undifferentiated and ummemorable... Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2005 by Steve Roberts
Minor Brookmyre
Christopher Brookmyre is a remarkable writer: creating thoroughly entertaining novels that combine the plot of a fast paced thriller with black comedy, graphic violence and... Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2005 by John E. Davidson
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
