Monday, September 17, 2007

Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks

I discovered Christopher Brookmyre on the recommendation of friend Richard, realising that the only way to stop him reading the whole canon to me down the phone was to start reading them and ask him not to spoil.

Brookmyre is now the only author I am unable to control myself over. Wait until the paperback? Joking.

In a little over 30 months I have read everything he has ever written apart from a couple of short stories I have just discovered on his web-site.

For those not familiar it's comedy crime writing but, unusually, is both funny and thrilling. The language is colourful (not for the easily offended and probably not for the sometimes offended), the characters beautifully drawn, the twists pretty twisty and the sentences a treat.

If you saw a TV version of Quite Ugly One Morning a few months back, don't be put off. The books are so much better than that.

Lots of things often end up exploding and people die horribly in most of the books. In the latest, when a Daily Mail columnist is locked in a dungeon with a psychopath and a bolt cutter, it is hard to feel too much sympathy. Those toes are going one by one. I love light-hearted holiday reading.

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