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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This makes The Wasp Factory look like Pingu..., 6 Jul 2004
Anyone who has experienced an Iain Banks novel knows what kind of territory we are entering into long before those first few vital sentences grab us like the piercing jaws of hell; refusing to let us go until that final, writhing moment, when the clues (and the body count) add up, and the world of the story comes tumbling in on it's self in a spectacularly, jaw-dropping fashion. The worlds he is able to create are bleak... filled with stark elements of reality and the kind of horrors ripped from the headlines. There's humour too, albeit, darker than anything you can image; though it is the snaking, ever-shifting plot, the attention to character, and the terrifying situations we are thrown into that mark out books like The Wasp Factory, The Bridge and this, as the classics they are... which, really, can't help but leave us coming back for more.Complicity is probably Banks' most disturbing work... giving us a portrait of the everyman thrown into circumstances that go beyond the realms of mere explicitness, as the writer gives us one of his most wince-inducing modern-horrors, coupled with possibly his greatest character, that of self-proclaimed gonzo-journalist Cameron Colley. In Banks' world, Colley is a man fairly content to live his life in the fast-lane... cruising from one-story to the next on a tidal-wave of drugs, drink, video-games & adulterous sex. However, when a series of seemingly random, and increasingly graphic murders and assaults begin to occur throughout the politically-immoral England of the early-nineties, Cameron finds himself hot-on-the trail of an exceedingly stealthy and disturbed serial-killer who may, or may not, be closer than he thinks... By the end of the book Banks has succeeded in putting his characters through all manner of physical and emotional degradation - as ghosts from the past and (literal) skeletons from the closet begin tumbling out of every available hidey-hole... - thus, the author is now able to shift the focus away from the killer theatrics of the preceding chapters to create an emotional dénouement that looks specifically at notions of constancy and morality. This is a deeply atmospheric work, with Banks alternating between the passive narrative voice in order to set-up situations that act as a self-aware red herring for the reader. As others have mentioned... this isn't a book for the faint-hearted, or those easily offended. Banks cuts right to the point with all the guile and precision of knife-wielding mad man, but is able to lift his story out of the mire of pulp-exploitation through the use of inventive scenarios, 3D characterisations and an undeniable way with words. Complicity is one of those great books that draw you in from the first page and never let you go... leading everywhere and nowhere simultaneously, whilst leaving you gasping with anticipation to find out just what will happen next. It's the kind of book you'll complete after a couple of days... emerging from the winding, writhing narrative, shocked by the horrors you have witnessed, but, at the same time, desperate to go back and re-analyse those all important clues.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stomach-churningly compulsive, 21 Jan 2005
Cameron Colley is one of the most loathsome heroes ever to grace a crime novel. Fortunately, it's the self-obsessed, substance abusing, kinky sex indulging, life-in-the-fast-lane attitude of this book's narrator which makes "Complicity" an un-put-downable read. Its combination of relentless pace and continual moral ambiguity mean that this is not a book for the faint-hearted. A host of truly gruesome characters meet truly gruesome, stomach churningly violent, deaths. Sordid secrets are revelled in. But like all Iain Banks' best works, the heart of this book is a mystery story so compelling that the book is practically un-put-downable. If you're a Banks fan, in some ways this book is the pinnacle of his cynicism and a brilliant example of his gift for telling a compelling story. If you're a devotee of crime novels, this is the ultimate whodunnit for the fag-end of the 20th century. If you like exploring deep questions of personal and social morality, there's more than enough subtext in this book to keep you philosophising for weeks. My only criticism is the total lack of subtlety. Banks can do subtle, as "The Crow Road" and "Whit" prove. He chose not to in this opus. But I'll let the reader decide whether the book loses by it, or gains.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificently twisted, 29 Aug 2006
Let's see, we have journalism, sex, computer games, sex, mysterious phone calls, kinky sex and murders... lots of them. Yep, must be another Iain Banks classic. I've read half a dozen Banks books now and the last two (Song Of Stone and Walking On Glass) left me feeling a bit wanting as I hadn't enjoyed them as much as some of the others, so I approached Complicity with mixed feelings. I'm pleased to say all misgivings were banished by the time I'd finished the second page and from then on I was sucked in to this darkly twisted tale.
I'll not give any of the plot away but safe to say it has the usual splashes of sardonic humour, great characterisation, whimsical anecdotes and extreme violence that you would associate with an Iain Banks book. Some readers might find the violence a bit excessive (one of my female friends admitted to reading through her fingers) but it is essential to the plot and as the victims were not exactly blameless people you kind of acquiesce to it and maybe that's the idea: it's not merely the complicity of the central character to the crimes, but also the tacit consent of the reader.
Anyway, give yourself a treat and give this very modest 310 page thriller a whirl. Guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, get your pulse going, make you squirm and, best of all, keep you guessing. If buying for another person, make sure he/she is a broad-minded sort.
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