A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil - Christopher Brookmyre

I'm not a big fan of crime novels, but with Jasper Fforde and Christopher Brookmyre making such consistently brilliant efforts at subverting the genre, my resistance is being eroded fairly swiftly. Christopher Brookmyre has established a formidable reputation for Scottish crime thrillers. Full of bodily fluids and lurid characters, they're generally hilarious to read, but shot through with such extreme violence that there's no chance of them ever being left in the 'humour' section. A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil is told entirely in the present tense, and follows two linked story strands - the progress through school of a group of ...

~ ~ I’ve been a fan of the Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre ever since I read one of his early books “Boiling A Frog” a few years back. His irreverent style of writing and his constant use of Scots vernacular in his prose appeals to me, although how someone not schooled in the intricacies of Scottish slang ever manages to wade their way through one of his books is as much a mystery as some of the crime/comedy novelist’s yarns. (Hence my title) ~ ~ Brookmyre has been feted as one of the UK’s finest novelists ever since his first novel, “Quite Ugly One Morning” (1996) won the “Critics' First Blood Award” for “Best First Crime Novel of the Year”. He followed ...