In Review

08 January 2009 12:27 BST

A Snowball in Hell by Christopher Brookmyre

Published by Little Brown, out August 14th, hardback, 393 pp, £16.99.

In a nutshell...

A dark, if slightly lightweight, comic thriller.

What's it all about?

Simon Darcourt, professional assassin and freelance terrorist is back from the dead and keen to show his talents off to a wider audience. Celebrities - from lists A-Z inclusive - are being plucked off the streets and imprisoned and the internet offers Darcourt the perfect medium to broadcast his own twisted reality TV show.

As the bodies pile up, policewoman Angelique De Xavier pits her wits against the seemingly deranged killer once more. But with the odds increasingly stacked against her she seeks to enlist the help of her ex-lover, wanted bank robber and magician Zal Innez - a master of deception and subterfuge. The pair face an increasingly desperate race against time as they seek to understand Darcourt's true motives and foil his plans.

Who's it by?

Christopher Brookmyre, journalist turned award-winning crime writer. Past efforts include All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye and A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away.

As an example...

"They called me a monster, but they lapped up my every performance. No show without punch after all, and my goodness, doesn't this nation of curtain-twitchers love a show." -Simon Darcourt justifies himself.

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

Perhaps not a blockbuster, but a couple of his previous novels have been optioned by film companies and his debut novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, made it to the small screen.

So is it any good?

A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, the last novel to feature Darcourt, was released into a world very different from the one it was written and conceived in, published as it was in October 2001 and it is clearly a world that has had some affect on Brookmyre and his alter-ego.

Not that Snowball is a 'post-9/11 novel' as such - its ideas aren't fresh enough. Although there is plenty of pontificating about suicide bombers and the changing face of terrorism, the book somehow conspires to feel slightly dated. You can't blame Brookmyre for taking his cues from popular culture - something even the casual reader will notice he revels. However, throw media obsession with a serial murder into the mix and suddenly you have strong echoes of Natural Born Killers, a movie that is now 14 years old.

That's not to say the book is bad, it's certainly highly readable, but Brookmyre is unable to summon up any real tension as the novel approaches its climax, possibly due to the fact all the characters feel like cartoonish superheroes. Still, the book still zips along and the reader will find themselves interested enough to stick with it until the end.

The brush strokes are too broad, and the set up too grotesque, for Snowball to be the satire it claims it to be, but the novel still raises several laughs along the way and while not 'un-put-down-able' is a decent read.

Snowball might be triumph of style over substance, but it is hard to dislike anything written by a man whose own website divides reviews of past works into "Good, awight and s***e".

6/10

Will Stevens