Going by title and name of author, one would expect a serious-minded literary novel, but no, this is a heavy-metal, expletives undeleted slice of Glaswegian lowlife, the characters wholly dysfunctional, the violence fistsmackingly shocking, and the body count an undertaker's delight. Should bear a warning: Not for the Granny or Maiden Aunt trade this holiday season.
This is Brookmyre's second excursion into the mean, rainwashed streets of his native city, and his anti-hero is again Jack Parlabane, investigative reporter extraordinary, lover of Dr Slaughter, con man, burglar, and, like the cat, the possessor of nine lives. When newspaper magnate and Robert Maxwell clone, Roland Voss, is found with his throat cut in a high-security government house, Parlabane feels let down - after all, he wanted to be the one to stick the knife in, if not literally, then metaphorically. Seems said Voss did the dirty on our hero in the past by having him framed on a drugs charge.
Four petty criminals are arrested for Voss's murder, Tam McInnes, his son Paul, and two cohorts. But Parlabane smells a rat and another set-up. So does pretty young lawyer Nicole Carrow, with whom McInnes has left a letter with the instructions to open it if he doesn't return to retrieve it. Reporter and law woman team up, enlist the aid of lesbian DS Jenny Dalziel, and then find themselves threatened by mysterious forces who are here, there and everywhere, all at the same time.
Deciding that some very heavy business is going down - no flies on Parlabane, even if he does talk too much - our protagonist and his bunch begin to suspect that what they're involved in is another cover-up by the sleaze-cleaning arm of the British Tory Party, in particular the section that follows after the Secretary of State for Scotland, one Alastair Dalgleish, picking up his dirty laundry.
The arch-villain is Knight, Dalgleish's minder - I'm not giving anything away here, as this is not the kind of novel that depends for its readability on unmasking the baddie on the last page; rather, it puts its eggs in the basket of larger-than-life characters, sporty dialogue, violent clashes, and Scottish types saying indecipherable things such as: "But it's pish. I've been staunin' on sticks aw fuckin' day, an' they don't even brek, never mind snap. They just sink intae the grun, or they just bend or kinna roll roon." Reminds me of all those Scottish football managers one sees pontificating on television, with everyone thinking what smart guys they are for the simple reason that they haven't a clue what the hell they're talking about.
There's quite a lot of that in this novel, with the added drawback of the author using twelve words where one would suit just as well. The plot is old-hat, with the bad guys always one step ahead of the good guys, until the climax when the guys in the white stetsons put on a spurt and win by a short head.
Along the way there are a few nuggets: some good dirty jokes, especially one about a shepherd; some telling insights into the state of UK politics; and some asides at establishment grandees: "Ordinary people get murdered. Poor people get murdered. Black people get murdered. Women get murdered. We don't get murdered. Occasionally one of us manages to off himself by mistake with the wife's knickers over his head or gets found upside-down in a septic tank after a share crash, but we don't get done in by the unwashed."
In the end, they get their comeuppance. So let's hear it for the little guy. In real life, the little guy gets walked on and the grandee heads for the Caymans, loaded with loot. Put that in your bagpipe and blow it.
Vincent Banville is a writer and critic
