Customer Reviews
Worst yet - By: Simon Pearson, 11 Nov 2008 
Short & sweet review as opposed to the tedious opening chapter(s). Definitely a change of style moving away from the earlier work & for my tuppence worth not a good move. If you're after the usual Brookmyre story telling then you probably won't be overly impressed with this one. I found it hugely disappointing & even by page 327 of 408 I was toying with not finishing it, something I've not done previously. Bored, bored, bored. Hoping for better next time...
Don't give up - By: M. Ross, 22 Oct 2008 
Read & enjoyed all Brookmyre's previous offerings. Picked this up a couple of weeks ago & put it down a couple of hours later. There is littlein the first quarter to incentivise the reader to carry on, I found it rambling , disjointed & dull.
I picked it up again last night, only put it back down when I'd finished. Don't be put off by the first few chapters, stick with it & you will be rewarded with with a thought provoking, page-turner.
Thank goodness for the superstrong lavvy paper of reason - By: Sphex, 15 Aug 2008 Jack Parlabane has a problem with unsinkable rubber ducks, those "people who are determined to go on believingin woo, no matter how much evidence to the contrary you present them with". We've all met them, apparently rational adults, suckered into buying bottled water or alternative medicine. A few pagesin we discover Parlabane's specific beef is with the beliefin ghosts: "it's still clinging on to the hairy ring of human comprehension, & the lavvy paper of reason just can't quite wipe it off." As a good rationalist, however, he can't avoid a piece of rather compelling evidence about ghosts: the fact that he has just become one. Being dead is bad enough, but the rubber ducks bouncing up & down quacking "I told you so" are infinitely worse.
That single, pungent, pugnacious image - "the lavvy paper of reason" doing its best under trying circumstances - is pure Parlabane. It also points up one of the big themes - the struggle between faith & reason - that makes this novel punch above its crime genre weight. We want to know the truth about the world, but how? Since ancient Greece, through the Enlightenment & the great scientific revolutions of Galileo & Newton & Einstein & Heisenberg, & continuing into the present day, the difficult path has always been to rely upon reason & evidence as the best route to knowledge. The easy option has always been faith - the "act of believingin things for no good reason".
A clue to the author's ambition & inspiration is the book's dedication to James Randi & Richard Dawkins, bothin the vanguard of the New Enlightenment. Brookmyre shares their fascination with the psychology of willing self-deception: how do beliefs for which there is an abject lack of reliable evidence thrive? He also shares their determination to do something about it, to expose some of the waysin which such beliefs take hold, by showing us how his characters respond to the pressure to believe. There is the wealthy Bryant Lemuel, who is receiving messages from his dead wife & trying to establish a "Spiritual Science Chair" at Kelvin University. Gabriel Lafayette takes the paranormal "from the end of the pier to the doors of the laboratory" but, according to Parlabane, has morein common with Linda Lovelace - both had "instigated unfeasible feats of swallowing". And why, according to these true believers, don't physicists ever "encounter any evidence of psychic forces"? Not because scientists are really unlucky - they don't see "because they don't believe."
Funnily enough, for this novel - for any novel - to work its magic, you need to believe, to go along with the fiction. When it comes to stories, I like being taken for a ride, I want to believe this is how things are, & I thoroughly enjoyed my first outing with Parlabane. I hadn't read much crime fiction since an adolescent phase collecting (and sometimes reading) second-hand Agatha Christies, & I didn't approach this as a puzzle to be solved (just as well, since I'm pretty slow at that kind of thing). Some seasoned Brookmyre fans have been more measuredin their praise: one reviewer suggests this may not be a good first Brookmyre, & others say it's not his best. I defer to their judgement over where this ranks, but for me this was a brilliant introduction. I can see how you can get a kick out of cracking the plot & predicting its twists, but there's more to this novel than finding out the astonishing fact that...
I'd never heard of Christopher Brookmyre until he was interviewed on the radio. I then read his "Dangerous nonsense" piecein the Guardian. It's nearly always a mistake to identify the opinions of a characterin fiction with those of the author, but, when it comes to the unsinkable rubber ducks, there's real overlap between Brookmyre & Parlabane, even down to certain phrases: according to C.B., faith needs the "full point-and-laugh treatment" while J.P. stuffs a couple more snooker balls into his phrase & suggests a "merciless point-and-laugh fest". This is an important reason why faith is still around - it's seen as a virtue & is revered rather than ridiculed, even by those who would rather stab their eyes with hot needles than sit through a sermon. The serious point of both author & main character is that "people should be responsible enough to avail themselves of the facts and, where necessary, adjust their beliefs accordingly". It's hard work & can be messyin an unsexy way - sometimes the lavvy paper of reason tears & leaves you with sticky fingers - but it's the best advice to the detectivein each of us, to anyone who wants to get at the truth.
a revelation - By: Mr. P. J. Trace, 15 Aug 2008 
I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with Brookmyre before picking this up, & all I can say is that I'm off to buy the rest - thoroughly enjoyable, well written & humourous. Lots of nice observations of Scottish society too...
Loved it - can't wait for amazon to deliver some more.
Another Stoater! - By: A. Ritchie, 31 Jul 2008 Christopher Brookmyre never disappoints & this book is no exception. Jack Parlabane is resurrected as the hero - albeit a dead hero - to guide us through the plot with his usual ascerbic wit. I love Brookmyre's use of language - good & bad! If you're easily offended don't read this book but if you are a realist, livingin the real world where people swear a lot, pick up this book & enjoy it as much as I did! Fantastic.
