Country of the Blind

✍ Scribed by Brookmyre, Christopher

• Book ID: 107839334
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 238 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

This is the second of Mr Brookmyre's books that I have read and all that it has done is to convince me that he has a very low opinion of the powers that be. In this story, set once again in Scotland, a very powerful man is murdered, along with his wife and bodyguards. The men that have supposedly committed this dastardly crime are burglars caught on the premises. These four are charged with the murders and seem about to be locked up for the rest of their mortal lives when a young lady solicitor called Nicole pops up and says that she was given documents that indicate that the men were framed.

Jack Parlabane, pain in the arse reporter extraordinaire, becomes involved when he sees Nicole on the TV and realises that there is something that she is not saying, which is way more interesting than what is actually coming out of her mouth. He is dragged in yet further when an old acquaintance is found dead after eating cyanide - no one else is implicated and so it is deemed to be self-inflicted.

It is remarkably complicated, and takes about two thirds of the book to get properly going, but when it does, it all comes together really well. Initially it is quite disjointed, and you are not sure what relevance one set of events have to another, but then you just have to trust that it will make sense in the end, and sense it does make. Unfortunately, conspiracy type stories have only two main outcome combinations - the evil bodies are either the ones that you meet right at the beginning and you have to resist the urge to shout at the characters "he's behind you", or they are the ones where you do not meet the real baddy until the end, just as he is taking off his mask and growling about pesky kids.

Mr Brookmyre does write very well, I can almost tolerate the use of the Irvine Welsh type phonetic Scottish writing, as with a bit of concentration, it can be quite effective, once I have got my brain in gear. He uses more big words than many authors, which is nice, and makes you think about what he is saying. I love some of his characterisation; Spammy in this book is a case in point. Most people know someone like Spammy, living in their own world, perched on their own cloud of some kind of strange fragrant smoke, and impossible to have a conversation with for 95% of the time. Except that every so often, they come out with an absolute blinder, leaving you open mouthed with amazement.

The titles of CB's books intrigue me, and if I could ask him, I would like to know where they come from. I can appreciate Boiling a Frog, because he gives his reasons, but the Country of the Blind, other than a reference to "there's none so blind as them that will not see", I don't know why he chose it although perhaps it is a rant at those of who are politically apathetic.

And yes, I am looking forward to Quite Ugly One Morning - but at the moment the next of his that I have to read is One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night - perhaps he just likes nonsense rhymes...
Chrissi (1st October 2001)