Sick and twisted. (Quite Ugly One Morning - Christopher Brookmyre)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Quite Ugly One Morning - Christopher Brookmyre
Date:	29/05/06 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting and funny crime/thriller.

Disadvantages: Scottish dialect spelled out in full which can be hard to get your head around.

Jack Parlabane, a Glaswegian investigative journalist with a bit of a reputation of skirting the law in pursuit of a story has just returned home to Scotland from America. Kipping over at a mate's place in Edinburgh, he awakens in the morning with the smell of vomit (not his own) filling his nostrils and a general feeling of being unwell that can only be attained through binge drinking.

Tracing the rather obnoxious odour, Parlabane finds himself locked out of his own flat, dressed only in his boxer shorts with various members of the law enforcement community milling around a flat on the floor below.

Parlabane's, perhaps unwise, decision to tiptoe through the crime scene to gain access to his own flat loses the "perhaps" when he's caught beside a mutilated corpse and a rather large mess in the living room.

One short trip to the cop shop later, and Parlabane is a free man, albeit one with a whiff of a story in his nostrils. Now all he has to do is grab a few unsuspecting souls and drag them along for the ride, too.

Quite Ugly… did grab me very quickly and I got sucked into the plot which started quickly and continued along at a brisk pace, right until the end. While not exactly a real page-turner, it is an engaging book that keeps interest levels up until the climax.

Characterisation is often a problem is books of this type that require you to make an emotional bond in order to bump up the tension. With the main two or three characters, the people are sufficiently fleshed out although though not spectacularly so. I thought it was obvious, at least in Parlabane's character that foundations were being laid for a returning character. The 'good guys' are likable and the 'bad guys' are either stupid, complete gits or both.

There are some issues, though. Brookmyre's insistence in spelling out the pronunciation of various characters' speech can be off-putting initially, though I quickly adapted to this. This might have been because some of the phrases used were similar to the Irish/Belfast colloquialisms. Brookmyre's work can be described as black-humoured crime. While 'crime' isn't a genre that I'd say was one of my favourites, I do like my black humour and Brookmyre delivers this in spades.

The tale is told from both sides, much like a Colombo episode, so you do know who the bad guys are, so don't expect a huge mystery or whodunit. The story is more about the journey than any twists or surprises, but enough is kept from you to ensure you're not completely in the know by the end of the book and some of the situations that Parlabane finds himself in are silly enough to stop the book from bring formulaic.

Despite all this positive press, Quite Ugly… is, in my opinion, not Brookmyre's best. It's worth starting here, at the beginning, though. The stories and writing get better in later books and some characters reappear in later books. Some are given full-blown leading roles, but others appear much in the same way that Kevin Smith cross-references his own characters in his movies with brief cameos or even just as a reference in a conversation.

Even so, it must be my old age because it's been a long time since I can remember either a book or an album really grabbing me immediately and leaving me gasping for more, but this did. I was thankful for the recommendation from someone who shares similar tastes to mine in books and in turn. If you like your black humour, then I'd definitely recommend Brookmyre's work and this, his first novel, is as good a place to start as any.

Summary: Jack Parlabane finds himself in them middle of a murder enquiry involving high ranking NHS staff.