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Internet contact between ex-school friends these days leads to some disturbing encounters, and Brookmyre's version of the scenario is typically murderous. Brookmyre is interested in whether or not the index to future of violent behaviour might be discerned in the school playground. DS Karen Gillespie is bemused by a cack-handed attempt at burning a pair of bodies; this takes place outside Glasgow (in fact, in the area in which she grew up). And in a nearby lodge, strange attempts have been made to clean up what appears to be the same crime, but (as a pathologist points out), everything here is handled as maladroitly as the murder. Two suspects appear, but when Karen discovers that they were at primary school together (along with one of the murder victims), things begin to look like a grisly version of Friends Reunited.
Brookmyre readers will know exactly what to expect from this scenario, and they won't be disappointed. If the level of invention is not as delirious as in previous books, Karen Gillespie is as quirkily characterised as ever.
--Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Right from the opening line there’s no mistaking the author’s voice. A dozen or so f-words and derivations and a couple of c-words down the page from another couple of typical incompetent “bampot” killers attempting to dispose of two dead bodies with the assistance of substances purchased from the local B&Q’s chemical cleaner department confirm the impression - we are most definitely in a new Christopher Brookmyre novel.
Yet, despite the familiarity of the opening dialogue and the situation, Brookmyre manages to find a new spin on his hilariously profane crime novels. Reminiscent of the memories fired-up in the old school-reunion situation of ‘One Fine Day in The Middle of the Night’, Brookmyre goes back even further this time and reminisces on the bonds formed between a group of children who all start school together at St. Elizabeth’s Primary in Braeside – all depicted in detail, year by year from primary one through to sixth form - with the author’s typical wit and keenness of observation. It adds considerable charm to the backgrounds of the characters who we later find mixed up in a multiple homicide many years later, as well as giving us the joy of seeing Brookmyre stretch his writing skills.
This time around, the ultra-violence is relegated to a welcome second place in favour of a spot-on account of growing up during the 70s up to the mid-80s. There are more schoolyard punch-ups than terrorist attacks in his new novel, but Brookmyre has a whole childhood of classroom incidents, slaggings and humiliations to draw on here and the writing is just as witty, inventive and foul-mouthed as ever, as Martin – now a bigshot lawyer, well-known to celebrity magazines – returns home to help out an old friend from school who has gotten mixed up in a particularly gruesome situation, that can only be explained by other ex-school friends knowledge of their time growing up together. The usual pyrotechnics aren’t there in the crime plot and it feels like just an excuse of the author to indulge in a hilariously funny and nostalgic account of growing up, but its perceptive writing with characters and situations will be recognisable by anyone. This is quite brilliant and easily one of Brookmyre’s best.
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