Customer Reviews
Carry On Up the Truncheon - By: one-eyed Jack, 15 Jul 2008 
What annoys me most about Flesh House isn't so much what's inside its pages, but what's written on the front & back covers. Let's start with Mark Billingham (a personal friend of the author if memory serves), who declares : "Fierce, unflinching crime fiction of the highest order". Sorry, but none of that is true, frankly. A more accurate appraisal might have been "Feeble, uninteresting crime fiction of the lowest order." On the back Val Mcdermid calls it "Ferocious & funny" - well, some of the imagery is pretty grim & unpleasant but the relentless attempts at comedy - & I'm talking about on almost every single page & which rarely raise a smile anyway - totally undermine any dark atmosphere the author was trying to create. Reginald Hill opines "If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident, strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then look no further." Well, Hill's observations are pure fictionin themselves, unless he had said "look elsewhere" for such objectives.
Let me explain why I say these things. The narrative is not taut, it is amongst the worst I have seen, & one of the reasons for this is MacBrides's continued obsession with mixing the narrative style with the dialogue style such that all the expletives spoken by the characters appear just as frequentlyin the narrative. That's amateurish, annoying & arduous for those of us like myself who have put up with this 'method' for four consecutive novels. I shouldn't really even mention the word 'prose' here, because there simply isn't any. It's just words. Nothing poetic, nothing beautiful & nothing to admire. Just as grudging a complaint on my part is the mention of 'strong characterisation', which as a description is funnier than any of MacBride's attempts at comedy after four whole novels.
We have, for want of a better word, a central characterin the form of DS Logan McRae; really all he represents is the story's moral conscience, the one without personality or comedic parody & consequently the most uninteresting personin the tale. Flesh House reads like a debut novel, but then so did all of its predecessors - there is categorically NO character development at all, as everybody looks, sounds & smells exactly the same as they always did. While it's true a few dramatic events fall the way of DI Insch, I am utterly sick & tired of the references to his physical size; if this book represented his introduction to the series it would have been bad enough (the words big', 'huge' & 'fat' must collectively appear well over one hundred times) but for the many who already knew of his dimensions, it's very wearisome.
Savagely dark humour? Try this extract & see if you agree:-
"She wasn't kidding about Insch's mood - by the time Logan bumped into the inspector, he looked as if someone had stuffed a hand grenade up his bum & pulled the pin. The explosion was imminent. Firein the hole."
Er - this is not savage, nor is it dark, & come to think of it, it's not funny either. I get the impression that MacBride likes humour best of all, & is trying (very successfully, it must be said) to sell a comedy storyin the crime fiction genre. The only linein the whole book that raised a smile for me - because it was subtle, for once - was on P.401 of the hardback when Logan is having a conversation over a cup of tea with the pathologist Doc Fraser. Immediately after Doc Fraser gruesomely describes the means of death (which involved decapitation), Logan calmly replies, "Here you go. Milk, two sugars." A very rare example of what might be regarded as clever humour, but all of the rest throughout the tale is straight from the stage of a corny pantomime or a Carry-On film. The 'horrors' are plentiful but these are totally undermined by MacBride's insistence on trying to be funny, & vice versa.
The only saving grace is that Flesh House is a little better than the one before - Broken Skin - which was a complete shambles. The irony is that I have a feeling that MacBride could do much better than this if he wanted to, but has cleverly assessed the demand from the biggest audiencein order to maximise sales. That's writing for money rather than out of passion, but also a sad reflection of the demands & standards of the contemporary British crime-fiction reader who if only they knew, could find much fiercer & more unflinching crime fiction elsewhere (try the first two of Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series for example), funnier & better-used humour from John Connolly, immeasurably finer prose from R J Ellory & stronger characterisation from Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin or Val McDermid among many others. Flesh House is popcorn crime fiction for the text-message loving populace & little more. There is so much better quality to be found outside of & beyond these pages.
cracking crime story, gory but with humour. - By: Paul Grose, 14 Jul 2008 
Again another excellent crime story, keeps you guessing & is hard to put down.Good humour throughout, but why did it take until page 326 for McBride to get the spelling of trichloroethylene correct??
Flesh House - By: Oribeth, 07 Jul 2008 
I have read all of Stuart MacBride's other books & enjoyed them. However, when I read a British Crime novel, I really don't want to be confronted by the gruesome pages I foundin Flesh House. I have to confess not to have finished it, & finding something else "quieter" to read to take my mind from it.
Not at all what I expected.
Stunning!! - By: Mr. Steven T. Orchard, 02 Jul 2008 
This was a real can't put down page turner. Paul Johnston's Quint Dalrymple, Jack Kerley's Carson Ryder & John Connolly's Charlie Parker books are all fantastic but you can't help liking the down at heeel main character, Logan McRae, even though you don't really know what he looks like etc. With this book, even when you can see what's coming, it hits you harder than you expect.
The only thing I didn't like about this book is the final five pages. Not gonna spoil it for anyone. Can't wait for the next book from a cracking writer who, despite the intensity of the narrative, still finds time to make the reader laugh with a dark wit.
I awarded five stars because I was enthralled, despite the ending.
Bloody marvellous - By: Oscar and Sam, 30 Jun 2008 I am only half way through this book (having gleefully received a shiny new hardback copy from Amazon 2 days ago) & am loving every line of it. I have read all previous SM books & he is by far my favorite 'writer'. If it wasn't for beingin full time employment I would have finished it by now - unputdownable. May Logan, Steel, Insch & Stuart Macbride long continue their production of fabulously gory & witty works! Hurrah!!!
