Quite Ugly One Morning [Audio Download]

I read this recently after a friend had recommended it sometime ago. I can only say I wish I'd read it sooner. This is a great first book, with all the fresh, dynamic offerings of great first novels such as Last Exit To Brooklyn (Selby), The Wasp Factory (Banks), and Less Than Zero (Ellis).

The basic plot is about the truly horrendous murder of a doctor in Edinburgh, the unwitting involvement of an investigative journalist, and the revelation of a somewhat blood-curdling business scam at a local hospital. The humour is thick and fast, the violence is thick and fast, and the main characters are so well shaped you could make an omlette with them. The first ten pages of this book are uncomfortable reading as the police investigate a murder scene brimming with blood, vomit (both from the scene and added to by certain police officers), and human poo. And it doesn't let up from here. However, the humour does salvage the discomfort caused by the murder because the jokes are aplenty and the writing is quality. But I wouldn't recommend this to fans of Inspector Morse or Bergerac.

The only problem I'd have with this book is the simplistic, almost childish attitude towatd 1980s Tory Britan. Don't get me wrong - I don't mind anyone that likes a good Thatcher-bashing - but the air to this is less one of political astuteness and more of basic aggression, good versus evil. As a result, the only politically motivated character in the book, the Tory-loving Stephen Lime, seems to be a thinly veiled charicature of Tory greed rather than a solid, imposing figure. None of the other characters are especially driven by politics, so it makes him stand out a bit too much as more of a political 'Anorak' rather than someone with ministerial prowess. But that's just niggling really. It's still a great book.

I've just finished re-reading this book again and it's as funny now as it was five years ago. While I know it must appeal to just about anyone who as a sense of humour and enjoys a whodunnit, if you are live in Central Scotland, you cannot help but identify with the things this guy says. I've recommended Brookmyre to everyone I know and no-one has done anything other than praise him and then went out and bought all his novels. Read this book and you will know what I mean.

PS The best opening line in a book I've ever come across!

"Quite Ugly One Morning" was Christopher Brookmyre's first book and consequently this is the first time we get to meet maverick journalist Jack Parlabane. Not only has Jack just returned to his native Scotland after a very narrow escape from work in America he has moved into a flat where the owner of the flat below, Dr Jeremy Ponsonby has just been discovered murdered in a very bloody and brutal fashion.

After another narrow escape when the police first suspect that Jack may actually be the murderer he meets up with the victim's former wife, a young aesthetician named Sarah Slaughter. Whilst Sarah isn't exactly pining for her murdered ex-husband she does suspect that something is not quite right with the burglary-gone-wrong scenario that the police seem to suspect has caused Jeremy's death. Likewise Jack, ever one to sniff out a story, starts to investigate the background to Jeremy's life and also makes an ally of one of the police detectives, Jenny Dalziel

Meanwhile the management of the NHS trust where Jeremy used to work is definitely up to no good. Trust leader Stephen Lime apart from the shady property deals that he's most keen to keep secret from the outside world he is also associating with a very disturbing looking violent criminal.

As with the other Brookmyre books I've read the style is short and punchy with the flavour ranging from caustic wit to gruesome violence. But the violence it does contain isn't without reason and it's not a blood fest with no direction, indeed almost like a Tarrantino film you forgive it for the bloody bits as they are intelligent and done with more than a little tongue in cheek.

One word of advice though would be to read the books in their published order and not do like me and read them out of order. Although the stories themselves are not consecutive it's better to read about how Parlabane comes onto the scene and how he meets Sarah. Both of these characters reappear in other books like "Country of the Blind" as does Jenny Dalziel. Interestingly one of the very minor characters in this book Larry Freeman has a much bigger role in another Brookmyre book "Not the end of the World"