Please make it into a film! (Shooting Sean - Colin Bateman)

Name: hugon

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Product:	Shooting Sean - Colin Bateman
Date:	30/05/01 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hilarious, Face paced, Great characters

Disadvantages: Absolutely none

Shooting Sean is the fourth book (to my knowledge anyway) featuring Dan Starkey, Belfast based journalist, the other three being Divorcing Jack (which was made into a film), Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men, and Turbulent Priests. It was my first book featuring him, and I only bought it on the off chance after exchanging it for a book, which I was given for my birthday, which I already had. I didn’t really know what to expect – I hadn’t ever heard of Colin Bateman before, and the only thing I knew was that someone had told me Divorcing Jack was a very funny film. I decided to take a chance on something I hadn’t heard of before, and I’m glad I did.

*MINOR SPOLIER ALERT – some of the plot given away, but nothing to spoil enjoyment of book, just to give you a good impression of the story*

As I mentioned before, the central character is Dan Starkey, a thirty-something journalist from Belfast. He is given the task of writing a book on Sean O’Toole, a local boy made good as a star of several blockbuster Hollywood films. Sean is taking up directing, and his first picture is a low-budget independent about terrorist Michael O’Ryan. Biographies of O’Toole have been done before, but this is an attempt to cash in on O’Toole’s death – although he isn’t actually dead yet, the nature of his film means O’Toole is under the threat of death, and as there is no publicity like death, the publishers see a well-timed biography as something to rake the money in.

Starkey takes an expenses account and goes down to the set of The Brigadier film that O’Toole is starring in and directing. On the outside, O’Toole seems to be a highly intelligent and amiable person, with no airs or graces of the famous, who is desperate for his film to succeed, and is working right down to the wire to get the film shot and edited so that it will make the Cannes Film Festival.

Starkey
217;s involvement with O’Toole almost costs him his life as he is ambushed by agents for O’Ryan, who throw him and O’Toole’s wife into a lake in an attempt to kill them off and scare O’Toole away from the film, but O’Toole’s security guards manage to haul them out in time.

However, as Dan investigates further into the life of O’Toole, he finds some unanswered questions about the man, and at the end of filming party, he finds out something about O’Toole that he has been keeping from Dan, and in an attempt to find out more, gets thrown out of the party and his work on the project is terminated. Normally that wouldn’t bother Dan, but when Michael O’Ryan turns up in Starkey’s hotel room, with pictures of his wife and son being held captive, Dan can’t help but get involved deeper. It turns out that O’Toole has met with O’Ryan in consultancy about the film, and has screwed him in a deal, so O’Ryan wants revenge. He gives Dan a choice – either his wife and son die, or Dan kills O’Toole. Dan has until they starve to make up his mind.

*End of spoiler alert*

When I had a flick through this book in the shop, I have to say I was hooked from the very first line, so much so that I hurried through the last book I was reading so I could start this one. For me, one of the best things was the fact that the book was based in Belfast – it meant I could actually picture some of the events in the book, as they are places not more than ten miles from where I live. It’s the first book I’ve ever read where I’ve been able to do that, and I thoroughly enjoyed that.

You may think from reading the synopsis of the plot that this is a thriller novel – it is in a way, but mostly the book is highly quirky and humorous. He book is told from Dan’s point of view, as if he’s relating the story to us in a pub, and as a
storyteller, he’s amazing. He has a wonderfully unique way of describing things, it’s warm and realistic, but he goes off on little tangents, as he describes what the scene is like, it reminds him of something else and he’ll tell you something funny about that, before reminding himself to get back to the story in hand.

The book is nicely divided up into forty chapters, each about eight pages in length. This keeps the story moving along at a steady and speedy rate, although it’s never so fast that you can’t keep up. The story is told in a very relaxed fashion, easing you into it, but you’ll find it difficult to put down, as it’s very good at holding your interest. Each chapter is told in episode fashion – they end on cliff-hangers, that make it almost impossible to stop reading at the end of each chapter because you want to know what’s going to happen next, and it’s so tempting to read the first few lines of the next chapter, so that before you know it, you’ve read the entire chapter and are presented with exactly the same problem at the end of the next chapter.

Another reason I enjoyed the book so much was the unpredictability of it all – it’s one of the books that has plenty of twists and turns in the book, where you are never sure what the characters are capable of doing, and so whatever happens is shocking and unpredictable, and really keeps you’re interest up. It isn’t that the characters are poorly described, because it’s entirely the opposite – they are so well described and their characters built up in such a way, that when they do turn, it isn’t unexpected at all and you could kick yourself for not having seen it in the first place.

The characters all play off one another very well. They have very witty conversations, and provide plenty of humour throughout what would otherwise be a standard thriller novel. Dan in particular
has a lot of the best lines; he’s a sarky person and heart and had me smiling on plenty of occasions with the unexpected little one-liners he throws in at times. I suppose I see a lot of myself in Dan – the self-deprecating humour and sarcastic responses, his dry and quirky sense of humour, his lethargic nature to the world around him – now I write that down, the guy could almost be based on me!

The book isn’t silly either – yes it’s funny, but it isn’t stupid funny. The situations never seem contrived, they may be slightly unlikely, but there is nothing fanciful about the things he finds himself involved in. The characters are as realistic as any serious book you’re going to come across, they just are able to speak with a humour that we could only ever dream about. When placed in a scenario where it is likely I’m about to die, I must remember some of Dan’s lines. While Starkey is sarcastic and drole at times (think of someone like Jack Dee and I don’t think you’d be all that far wrong), he is also human and has a heart of cold – he can be tempted too, but when his wife and child are in danger, he will do anything to get them back, and the guilt and pain he suffers while searching for O’Toole seem very real.

Like all good comedy, it isn’t just confined to spoken humour between the characters, but there is also a lot of visual humour – well not visual humour, it’s a book, not a cartoon script, but I hope you know what I mean – Dan is adept at getting into difficult situations, and more often than not, tries to get out of trouble by doing the most difficult things. The description of the events is perfect, you could almost be standing in the corner watching him, as Dan describes exactly what he is thinking, feeling and seeing.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the fourth book to feature Dan Starkey, but it really doesn’t matter if
you haven’t read any of them before, as the plot is entirely self-contained, and the main characters are described from the start, assuming that you haven’t read any of the other books before. There are a few references to events in some of the earlier novels, but never anything that is going to completely bemuse you.

It was one of the best reads I’ve had in a long time, and I’m certainly going to get the earlier novels in the series – Divorcing Jack, the first instalment has already been ordered. I feel this type of book would make a great film – it’s fast paced and exciting, as well as providing plenty of humour, both visual and spoken, to have you in absolute stitches. The first novel, Divorcing Jack, has been made into a film, which I am now determined to see as soon as possible. In short, in case you couldn’t tell already, I am recommending this book in no uncertain terms as an essential read.

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