- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown & Company (1 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0316848670
- ISBN-13: 978-0316848671
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.5 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 409,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Christopher Brookmyre's One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night is a lethal farce in which nothing goes quite according to plan. The mercenaries and terrorists who seize an oil rig converted into an international resort are almost too busy wanting to kill each other to get on with the job, for one thing, and, for another, the group they take hostage are a high-school reunion rather than the conference of the internationally famous they are expecting. One of the high-school year went on to be a famous gangland hardman before reforming, and another is a darkly brilliant comic whose career is on the skids--and a couple more have spent far too much time in the cinema not to know what Bruce Willis would do... This is a splendidly constructed darkly funny novel in which the oddest things prove suddenly lethal and in which the imagined geography of a closed environment is at once a trap, and a playground for heroism, double cross and the sudden discovery of true love. The running gags and knowingness about movies ought to be less amusing than they are, but Brookmyre's underlying affection for ordinary people and contempt for bullies stops them being self-indulgent.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
THE TIMES
'A high octane sense of the absurd'
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First Sentence
William Connor was standing outside a disused cattleshed on a bright Highland summer's morning, ankle-deep in cowshit, liquidised mercenary raining splashily down about his head from the crisp blue sky above. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
William Connor was standing outside a disused cattleshed on a bright Highland summer's morning, ankle-deep in cowshit, liquidised mercenary raining splashily down about his head from the crisp blue sky above. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely bloody brilliant!,
By
This review is from: One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (Paperback)
I have read this book so many times that some of the pages are beginning to fall out!
Brookmyre's writing style is witty and clever, wonderfully bringing to life his characters and the situation they find themselves in. A school reunion on a converted oil rig goes disastrously wrong as a group of not-so-professional mercenaries try to take control of the rig. Despite the differences they once had on the playground, the now mature ex-students and their English teacher must band together to save themselves. Featuring guns, bombs, rocket launchers and a laundry chute, this is one of the best books I have ever read.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great modern Scottish fiction,
By gillian_cull@hotmail.com (Scotland, resident in China) - See all my reviews
This review is from: One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (Paperback)
In the midst of a shoot-out on an oil rig, Ally McQuade and his old English teacher Mrs Laurence commiserate about the awfulness of the school reading list and the tedious hours spent ploughing through Grassic Gibbon's "A Scots Quair". Readers educated in Scotland will sympathise. It's definitely time One Fine Day, a beautifully crafted novel from one of Scotland's best writers of modern fiction, made it onto the Higher lists instead. Like Christopher Brookmyre's earlier books, this is a page-turner, with a satisfyingly tight plot. Brookmyre is accomplished enough in the thriller-fiction genre to play around with its cliches, and the reader's expectations, to hilarious effect. He does a lovely line in dry humour - though very occasionally, an overdose of authorial irony threatens to slip the tone into Terry Pratchett territory. Brookmyre's sharp wit comes over best through his glorious cast of Paisley-bred characters. All are recognisable, deftly drawn, and their dialogue begs to be read out loud. Has anybody bought the film rights yet?
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Laughs a plenty!,
By allan is cool (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (Paperback)
I can't recommend this book highly enough - A mixture of small town Scottish high school nostalgia and over-the-top hollywood gunplay (yes, really!), which turned out to be the funniest book I've read in ages. Many a laugh out loud moment was to be had with this.My only criticism is that after slowly building the characters and setting the scene, the author seemed to want to get the action over as quickly as possible. Only a minor detraction from what is an action packed pageturner and a half.
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