Where The Bodies Are Buried [Hardcover]

The latest novel from Chris Brookmyre (note that - Chris, not Christopher) marks a significant change for the author, with a new set of characters that are due to appear again in subsequent books. What's most notable about Where The Bodies Are Buried however (apart from the shortening of the author's first name), is that Brookmyre's latest novel is ...well, somewhat more conventional as a crime thriller than his previous semi-comic terrorist thrillers.

That's not to say that the author's trademark Glaswegian wit, irony and deadpan sarcasm isn't still in evidence, nor that he has lost any of the keenness of his observational satire of the bampots that pass for a Glasgow crime underworld. There's a great riff early in the book on the lack of subtlety among the criminal fraternity north of the border, where a crime is not so much a "whodunit" as a "cannaemisswhodunit". Somewhat surprisingly then, Where The Bodies Are Buried is pretty much a whodunit and the new characters introduced in this novel are a police detective and a Private Investigator.

Jasmine Sharp is an out-of-work actress who is employed by her ex-police force PI uncle Jim, to help him out with the usual ham-fisted insurance claims and scams that make up the majority of his work. When Jim goes missing however, Jasmine discovers that he's been working on a couple of other long-standing missing person cases that may be linked to his own disappearance. The Glasgow police however have other matters to worry about when DI Catherine Geddis looks into the killing of a criminal that seems to have sparked off a war between the city's drug lords, but finds that her investigations appear to be hampered from agencies within the police force itself. Evidently there a connection between the two cases, and it involves the biggest organised crime group in the city.

The mordant wit and high-octane explosions of gory violence are definitely toned down in the latest novel to such an extent that fans of the author's earlier work will undoubtedly be disappointed by what is a relatively more conventional crime work. Conventional maybe, but Where The Bodies Are Buried is still a fine crime novel in its own right, with strong characterisation and a compelling whodunit with a satisfying, credible conclusion. Considering the "missing persons" nature of the crimes at the centre of the book, it shouldn't be too difficult to work out the unspoken four words at the end of the novel. Even that however is a fairly standard twist, but it should ensure that we have an interesting PI team in place for the next book.

I enjoyed this novel, and it was better than a post Rebus Rankin that I struggled through just before it. It lacks the spark that made me want to read all the other Brookmyres though. "A snowball in hell" is my favourite of his books, whilst "a tale etched in blood and hard black pencil" got me into him.
It would be hard for him to continue along in that line without becoming repetitive though, so this is a bit different for him, but does make him more like many other crime writers. It gets a bit boring reading cliched descriptions of cops with dyfunctional family lives because they work too hard, bent coppers etc.
So, a good book but unusually for him not a brilliant book.

Like other reviewers here, a Brookmyre completist (initially ensnared by "Not the end of the world"). Totally sold on his Hiaasen like take on the political, religious, wacky -well if you weren't laughing you'ld have to cry - world of Central and West Scotland. And then Pandaemonium, and then this. A less than totally convincing swing into sci-fi fantasy, and then a serviceable but totally unremarkable whodunit.

It only gets two stars from me because it could have been a less readable pot-boiler - and I admit I read it straight through - but it lacks just about all the elements that make Brookmyre's previous books different and exceptional. I certainly will be watching the reviews, and almost certainly waiting until the paperback release of his next one.

So where's the body? It may just be that he's run out of plot lines in his politics/sectarianism/corruption box: Scotland is a lot duller under devolution, with fewer Sassenach carpet-baggers or press barons to worry about. The seams based on teenage tearaways, then and grown up a bit may be getting thin.

But I suspect that he's where many an indie singer-songwriter finds themselves after the sixth album, trying to get out of his niche, cross-over, whatever. Produce plots that will sustain a Glaswegian Wire, perhaps. At least avoiding multi-layered plots that TV commissioning editors despair of turning into a ninety minute special, and introducing characters without pre-watershed blemishes (no alcoholics or lesbians,or Ugandan Asian Special Branch female anti-terrorist amazons, for example). Little late for the two female detective slot, I fear.

That's my working hypothesis however: under pressure from agent and publisher, having failed to carry the leap to fantasy, crossing over to the mainstream, going, as another reviewer suggested for the Rankin-Rebus slot. Sorry, I don't think any of the new characters here have got what it takes to carry that sort of weight over time. But he may be able to sell the package for big TV bucks. He may prosper as an MOR whodunit writer. But he's no longer the author I couldn't wait to read. This is workmanlike, but no more.