- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Piatkus Books (3 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0749931582
- ISBN-13: 978-0749931582
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,242,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Douglas Lindsay's Barney is the most notorious serial killer of his time--but wouldn't hurt a fly. It is all a misunderstanding, a series of accidents and a dead mother with stiffs in the fridge; but now Barney is on the run, blamed for every unsolved murder going and various Scotland missed penalties in the World Cup. Seeking peace of mind and safety, he heads for a remote monastery, where, in due course, he is followed by the police--but not before a series of violent deaths, many of them involving his scissors.
Barney cannot imagine that the Abbot is such a man; he'd seemed happy enough after the cut. Perhaps, Barney ponders, he has a secret mirror and checked the cut after it was given. Barney's imagination races. Maybe the Abbot has a lot more than a secret mirror...Everyone is in this monastery because they have secrets, and some of those secrets are a deal more worrying than Barney's--and the past of the monastery, its resort to cannibalism in the hard winter of 1938 and whatever it was that happened at Two Trees, is of even greater concern. And what is the Abbot hiding under his robes? Douglas Lindsay has a scattershot sense of humour which alternates the mildly routine with the uproarious--there is always another joke along in a moment if one misfires. The hapless Barney, guilty of little except being deeply boring, is a comic creation of real merit, and the mysteries of the monastery is a genuinely involving puzzle. --Roz Kaveney
What's On, March, 2000
With classic timing and delight in the grotesque, Lindsay has crafted a macabre masterpiece where content lives up to style.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read the first in the trilogy of books about Barney Thomson, the barber from Glasgow, I couldn't wait to read the second one. I was definitely not disappointed! The story was even more intriguing and original than the first, but still retained its excellent sense of black humour. Once again, the witless mind of Barney only serves to get him into even more trouble and you can feel yourself wanting to shout at him to do the most obvious and logical thing to get him out of the mess! Of course, he never does - and a good thing too, or we'd never be able to savour such a wonderful, twisted, yet very funny plot!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Superb. One of the funniest books I've ever read - it had me in stitches. Not that it would suit those of a nervous disposition, but I loved it. All the Barney books are good, but this one is the best.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read most of this book sitting on the toilet - just five pages at a time, and the plot is sufficiently simplistic that you won't get confused if you just pick it up and read a tiny bit of like that. It's a sequel, but my wife didn't know that when she picked it up for me in a charity shop, and it really didn't matter that I hadn't read the first book - it is alluded to on numerous occasions but knowing the details of the story is not important. In a nutshell it's about a barber who hides out in a remote monastery, cut off from civilisation by the winter snow, because the police wrongly believe him to be a serial killer; the twist is that one of the monks is a real serial killer and people suddenly start getting bumped off one by one. If I was going to sum up The Cutting Edge of Barney Thomson in one word it would be "laboured". This is a comedy in which the running jokes are over-egged and repeated more than once too often and the characters have a very annoying habit (no pun intended) of going off on lengthy monologues in which they just repeat a single statement in increasingly flowery language. The dialogue is not very believable and it's a shame because occasionally you get the sense that Lindsay really is capable of creating a very real interplay between his characters. This really comes through in the will-they-or-won't-they sexual chemistry between the male and female police officers leading the chase for Thomson. I've now learned that there are a couple more books in the series and I'm encouraged enough to pick one up if I see it cheap. It's a very lightweight read but an enjoyable little yarn with some nice ideas that could have been better if the editor had snipped a few more pages (there, I intended the pun that time).
Most Recent Customer Reviews
If you're really out of options..
I was recommended the Barney Thomson books by Amazon's 'recommendations for you', and since I was presently out of new books, I bought three of them. Read more
Published on 7 July 2009 by Mats Nilson
spoiled by poor proof reading
Like others who have commented on the Barney Thomson series, I bought this on recommendation from amazon because I'm a fan of Brookmyre and Bateman. Read more
Published on 19 Nov 2008 by leolioness
I didn't finish it
OK in a way but it didn't grab my attention and I didn't finish it.
Published on 17 Jan 2008 by Brian Abbott
Excellent from start to finish!
This is the second in the Barney Thomson series. I did wonder how it could possibly better the first book which had me laughing out loud in various places. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2002 by "weekezza"
Twisted Humour - Tremendous Read
I bought this book mainly on the basis of a recommendation from amazon, as it appeared to be in the same vein as other authors I had enjoyed recently, such as Colin Bateman. Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2002 by GordonR
Rather pathetic
I bought this because of the glowing reader recommendations and regretted it bitterly by about page 3. Read more
Published on 5 May 2002
A surreal episode of death before life!
A looser, a chancer, an out-and-out waster - Barney Thompson, hero to the uncut, thorn in the side to the uneducated. Read more
Published on 1 Oct 2000
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