Way back in 1996, I picked up a book by Christopher Brookmyre based on a staff recommendation in a long-since-closed book store. I’ve never regretted it, and I’ve gone on to read and reread all his books. This Christmas, it was Be My Enemy (or Fuck This for a Game of Soldiers).
Set at the opening weekend for a teambuilding retreat in the Scottish highlands, the novel unites an eclectic group of advertising execs, PR teams, one crime reporter (familiar from earlier books), and a few sundries in a drizzly old pile for what they thought would be paintball and group hugs.
Unfortunately, that’s not all they’re in for. A downed bridge and a dead body are just the start of a weekend that’s not going quite to plan. The resulting ridiculousness is twisty, turny and just a bit hilarious.
I’ve read so much low-effort fiction this year that it came as a pleasant surprise to revisit Brookmyre and remember that his use of language takes no prisoners, and the pace of his novels still enthralls me enough that I pick up the pace of my reading accordingly. These books are a delight, and just as funny as I recalled. If you’ve never read Brookmyre, I suggest starting with Quite Ugly One Morning or One Fine Day In the Middle Of The Night.
*
Jane Harper’s one of the few Australian crime authors that I really enjoy. Her novels are absolutely evocative of the Australian environment, without making so much of it that the plot becomes secondary (yes, I’ve read novels that build the landscape better than the characters, pages and pages devoted to descriptions I could do without).
Best known for The Dry and subsequent Aaron Falk novels, Harper (along with Chris Hammer) has carved out a place in my dismissive, culturally cringing heart that means I’ll always buy her novels. Last One Out is her latest, set in a dying rural town in NSW.
Carralon Ridge is being slowly consumed by the coal mine that used to be on its outskirts, but is encroaching further towards the town proper every year. Most residents have left town, the lucky (early) ones getting a payout for their land, the unlucky just locking the doors one last time before heading out.
Five years before the events of the novel, Ro’s son Sam disappeared into thin air, leaving a solo trail of footprints in and out of three abandoned houses. Back for the anniversary of his disappearance, Ro is still searching for her son, and for answers that she fears will die with the town.
This was a high quality mystery, but parts rang slightly hollow for me. I had the killer pegged early on (the gun in the first act was cannon-sized), and the characters didn’t feel quite as well-realised as previous ones have. The grief of losing a son or brother is certainly something that can eclipse other parts of one’s personality, but no matter how realistic, writing the characters that way makes it difficult for a reader to engage with them.
These are minor quibbles, though – Last One Out is well worth the read.
*
I read Never Flinch on annual leave, and perhaps it suffered from me having too much time on my hands. I’m sure I don’t think quite so much about Steven King books in the normal run of things.
This is the latest Holly adventure, and while she has received mixed reviews as an ongoing character, I’m a fan. I enjoy her slow growth book by book into a confident PI, she’s sharp and compelling and a good evolution for a 2025 grizzled detective to have taken.
It’s redundant after however many hundred million novels to say that King knows how to spin a good yarn, but I’m always struck afresh by just how compulsively readable his books are. I’m always hooked quickly, and I don’t put them down until I know how it all ends.
I’m not going to spoil things, but I will say that I don’t think King was necessarily up to the nuance of the religious thread. It could be pretty easy for a surface read to confuse exactly who is evil, and who is a victim.
Other than that uneasiness, I enjoyed this – fast paced, came together well in the end, and Holly and co are well-lived-in enough that it’s always good to spend time with them. I do enjoy that latter-day King is so explicit with his political views via Holly. He’s hit the DGAF portion of his career.
