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Overview
British critics have compared Christopher Brookmyre's writing to the "sassy, nasty, fast style of the Americans Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen" (The Guardian) and called his work "perpetually in-your-face ... irreverent and stylish" (The Times). Now he returns with another cracked gem of a comic thriller: Country of the Blind. This time, hard-bitten investigative journalist Jack Parlabane — hero of Brookmyre's award-winning novel Quite Ugly One Morning — finds himself up to his eyeballs in murder, mayhem, and political intrigue when conservative tabloid media mogul Roland Voss is discovered at his country estate with his throat slit and his wife and bodyguards killed. The police have arrested four men fleeing the scene, but for Parlabane it all doesn't add up and he suspects the fix is in ... unless he can get to the bottom of things before everybody else. Packed with Brookmyre's distinctive collection of wacked-out characters and fueled by his trademark hell-for-leather pacing, Country of the Blind is a tart "tartan noir" that will leave you breathless with suspense — if you're not asphyxiated by convulsions of laughter first.Synopsis
British critics have compared Christopher Brookmyre's writing to the "sassy, nasty, fast style of the Americans Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen" (The Guardian) and called his work "perpetually in-your-face ... irreverent and stylish" (The Times). Now he returns with another cracked gem of a comic thriller: Country of the Blind. This time, hard-bitten investigative journalist Jack Parlabane -- hero of Brookmyre's award-winning novel Quite Ugly One Morning-finds himself up to his eyeballs in murder, mayhem, and political intrigue when conservative tabloid media mogul Roland Voss is discovered at his country estate with his throat slit and his wife and bodyguards killed. The police have arrested four men fleeing the scene, but for Parlabane it all doesn't add up and he suspects the fix is in ... unless he can get to the bottom of things before everybody else. Packed with Brookmyre's distinctive collection of wacked-out characters and fueled by his trademark hell-for-leather pacing, Country of the Blind is a tart "tartan noir" that will leave you breathless with suspense -- if you're not asphyxiated by convulsions of laughter first. "A high-octane political thriller doused in stinging satire." -- The Sunday Times (London)
Publishers Weekly
Glasgow's crusading muckraker Jack Parlabane returns in the fifth novel from journalist Brookmyre (Quite Ugly One Morning; One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night; etc.). A plucky English lawyer, Nicole Carrow (out to make it as a public defender in Scotland to rebel against her dad), is finding out she got more than she bargained for with potential clients like Mrs. McGrotty "an elephantine creature in a shapeless brown coat that looked like it had been fashioned from dog-pelts and then dragged behind a heavy goods vehicle for a couple of days." Then she's approached by a strangely courteous ex-con named Tam McInnes, who gives her an envelope full of evidence of a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of British commerce and government. Shortly afterwards, billionaire media mogul Roland Voss is brutally murdered, and McInnes and three others (including his son, Paul, and Paul's hilariously dissipated roommate, Spammy) have been artfully set up to take the fall. The only one to believe Nicole, however, is the ever-suspicious Parlabane, who knows good media manipulation when he sees it. More murders and a daring jailbreak (or is it another setup?) send McInnes & Co. into hiding and stir up a national manhunt, while back in Glasgow Parlabane races to expose the scam. While the plot may sound hackneyed, Brookmyre's deft character sketches, street-level dialect and mercilessly satirical observations of cross-border politics, journalism and human zaniness keep this good-sized novel moving smoothly along. The U.K. press has called Brookmyre a Scottish analogue to Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard; Country of the Blind actually proves it. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (Sept.) Forecast: Brookmyre uses a lot of Scots dialect, which has been gaining popularity since Irvine Welsh and James Kelman were published here and goes over well with a young audience (which may explain Grove's decision to publish this as a trade paperback). Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.