Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Lacks Character, 12 Sep 2008
Sometimes I worry that I'm horribly out of touch, because books that seem to get universally glowing reviews on Amazon often leave me feeling a little bit disappointed. This is certainly the case with A Snowball in Hell, Christopher Brookmyre's latest satirical swipe at contemporary British society. Whilst others seem to have found it a wonderful read I came away with the distinct impression that it was a series of rants, albeit entertaining ones, hung on paper-thin plotting and characterisation, rather than a truly satisfying novel.
Part of the problem for me was the characters Brookmyre decides to revisit in the book. I never found Angelique D'Xavier or Zal Innez to be particularly interesting characters, and Simon Darcourt, the source of most of the satirical pot shots, feels like nothing more than a mouthpiece for the author's views on celebrity and society in general. None of them have wit of Jack Parlabane, the ordinary humanity of Jane Bell from 'All Fun & Games' or are as funny as the likes of Spammy from Country of the Blind. As a result I found myself investing far less in events on the page.
My second issue was the plot and structure of the book. Brookmyre loves his convoluted plots, which always skirt along the edges of plausibility, but I felt with this one he had to work so hard to avoid gaping holes developing that too much time was spent on exposition and explanation, slowing the pace of events in places and detracting from more important elements of the story. Furthermore by keeping all three main protagonists apart for two thirds of the book's length and thereby constantly swapping plot strands the narrative flow was more of a stop/start affair. It also resulted in a denoument that felts truncated and rushed once everyone was eventually brought together.
Finally, and most importantly, I found there to be a dearth of real laugh out loud moments on offer. Yes, some of Darcourts rants against the vacuity of modern life were sharp and spot on, but they didn't feel particularly original or come across as that funny. At most Snowball in Hell raised an amused smile or a wry chuckle, which isn't really enough for a Christopher Brookmyre novel.
I think that with Snowball In Hell Christopher Brookmyre had targets that he wanted to hit, from TV Talent shows to right-wing tabloid commentators, and he wrote a book that would allow him to do just that. What he forgot to do at the same time however, was to pay enough attention to wrapping a satisfying comedy thriller around the point scoring and this shows in the weakness of plot, character and comedy.
No doubt many ardent Brookmyre fans will disagree with my point of view, and Snowball in Hell hasn't put me off buying his next book. I still think he is a great writer, satirist and observer of the human condition. I just think that sometimes he allows his desire to score points against his chosen targets to get in the way of a great story and this is one of those times.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A killer with ratings!, 15 Aug 2008
With "A Snowball in Hell" (I do recommend you read "A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away" and "The Sacred Art of Stealing" before this one) Brookmyre is again his sharp funny self with a very dark side. Simon Darcourt is a celebrity killer in more ways than one. First he enjoys murdering famous people, especially ones who have no talent or reason for being famous. But he has become a celebrity in his own right via his posting real time video of his killings and to make things really interesting he lets visitors to his site vote on wether the victim lives or dies. This makes for some wonderfully black humor. Darcourt's website is getting more hits than Google and he is more famous then the last winner of American Idol. It is again up to Angelique De Xavier to try and bring Darcourt to justice. This is a deliciously funny and dark read that I highly recommend. Best thriller I have read since "A Tourist in the Yucatan!"
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Acerbic, Exhilarating Tour de Force, 24 Aug 2008
One of the three main characters in this book is a sleight of hand specialist. Zal Innez previously appeared in the excellent `The Sacred Art of Stealing' alongside Angelique De Xavia, the policewoman who hunted him down, then let him escape because she loved him. His stagecraft is a metaphor for this book insofar as NOTHING is as it seems and author Christopher Brookmyre stuns us regularly throughout with a whole series of brilliant set-pieces of misdirection.
Here, Angelique relocates and recruits Zal to help her capture arch-baddie Simon Darcourt (who previously appeared in `A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away, together with Angelique). Zal and Angelique put their unresolved love affair on hold as they pursue Darcourt, who is capturing celebrity after celebrity and killing them in his own bizarre version of a reality TV show. She also has a special vested interest in apprehending him that I won't give away.
Halfway through this book I actually thought Christopher was trowelling on the satire too heavily, taking pot shots at too many easy targets: crap racist 70s comedians, gold-digging WAGS, reality TV, manufactured teen bands, splenetic right wing newspaper columnists. And some of these had already been covered by Ben Elton in `Dead Famous' and `Chart Throb'. But I have to say I was then bowled over by an excellent bit of misdirection - pure Jeffrey Deaver in execution - and was later actually punching the air and grinning from ear to ear at the audacity of later examples of his legerdemain.
It goes without saying that there are several hilarious passages, and that Christopher is 1000% more caustic than Ben Elton, or the other writer he's often compared to, Florida's own moral guardian, the great Carl Hiaasen.
`A Snowball in Hell' is a high-octane mix of thriller, satire... and love story, the latter proving that CB has a heart beneath his curmudgeonly exterior. It is also quite superb and right up there with the very best of his books. And as I mentioned earlier, the plot twists are breath-takingly good.
Recommended highly to all lovers of crime thrillers, satire, humour, and indeed anyone in general who likes a good read. However, one word of warning: you don't necessarily have to have read either of the two CB titles I mentioned above, but I recommend you do otherwise you may find the first 20-30 pages, and a few later plot references, a touch difficult to follow.
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