Guess who's back, back again? Olly's back, tell a friend...
Guess who's back, back again? Olly's back, tell a friend...
Member since:05.09.2004
Reviews:118
Members who trust:97
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 Scottish children from their first day right through to their leaving 'dance', and a murder investigation about twenty years later.
Brookmyre's previous works have often made a big deal about the characters' backgrounds and childhoods. The author seems to enjoy inventing detailed histories for his characters to shed light on their actions in the book. The idea of characters unable to let go of their schooldays was previously explored in 'One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night' where a school reunion erupts into violence, but the police investigation provides an opportunity for much more detailed probing of the characters. There are very few writers who could hide a clue to a murder in an account of the day the smelly 7 year old did a poo in a school corridor.
As I'm not a particular fan of crime writing, my main interest here was in the accounts of the schools. Although this class seemed a bit rougher than my schoolmates, so much here rings true - the girl who smells a bit, the fat bitchy girl, the boy who always gets into trouble, the child who marks himself for life for calling a teacher 'mummy' by mistake, kids forgetting their name on the first day of school as they're so nervous. The arcane rules of playground football where there can be up to three games on the same pitch. The rules of engagement at school discos. Everything is incredibly familiar, right down to the caretaker who can never be bothered to fetch lost footballs from the school roof.
It's so rare to see school life written about so frankly, without hefty doses of nostalgia sweetening the tale. And anyone who's worked with children will recognise the faint sense of regret that suffuses the writing - as the cute little 5 year old moppets become slowly tainted by the ordeals of growing up and turn into vicious adolescents.
Brookmyre's fondness for Scottish vernacular continues unabashed - and this novel does even have a glossary at the back for those readers who haven't read Trainspotting. It's getting a little Shakespearean though. Just as the servant parts in plays like Romeo and Juliet speak prose while the main characters get the blank verse, here it's all the minor characters and ciphers who talk like the Glaswegian Mafia (they make you an offer you can't understand), while the protagonists (Detective Inspector Karen Baker and former lawyer Martin) speak in normal English. Funny and character-enriching as all the slang is, it would probably alienate readers if they had to keep looking up half the main character's dialogue.
If I had a single criticism of the novel, it would be that the resolution of the murder investigation is a bit of an anti-climax - as is the resolution of the school thread. There IS a huge emotional pay-off for a few of the characters, but at least one twist is fairly easy to spot, and a bit of frenzied action at the end might have made the book a more complete and satisfying read for those of us who did spot the way the plot was heading. I'm not saying thrillers HAVE to end with gunfights and thunderstorms, but in this case it might have been nice (whereas Sacred Art of Stealing could probably have done quite nicely without its closing gorefest).
My copy cost about £8.99 through Amazon, but the book has been out a while now and there are many deals available.
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Of all writers practising what might loosely be called crime fiction today, Christopher ... more
Brookmyre is the one who lends himself least easily to categorisation. There are those eccentric titles, for a start: such as the latest one: A Tale Etched in Blood...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Of all writers practising what might loosely be called crime fiction today, Christopher ... more
Brookmyre is the one who lends himself least easily to categorisation. There are those eccentric titles, for a start: such as the latest one:A Tale Etched in Blood ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Of all writers practising what might loosely be called crime fiction today, Christopher ... more
Brookmyre is the one who lends himself least easily to categorisation. There are those eccentric titles, for a start: such as the latest one: A Tale Etched in Blood...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Of all writers practising what might loosely be called crime fiction today, Christopher ... more
Brookmyre is the one who lends himself least easily to categorisation. There are those eccentric titles, for a start: such as the latest one:A Tale Etched in Blood ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jul 13th, 2007
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