4.5 stars
First thing off the bat, in this book, this elite named Roland Voss is murdered. I want to say he's a Rupert Murdoch look alike. Reporting the news,
"Eventually, out of facts and out of quotes, they moved on to reaction, which in most cases was blank disbelief....
ordinary people got murdered. Poor people got murdered. Black people got murdered. Women got murdered. We don't get murdered.
Occasionally one of us manages to off himself by mistake with the wife's knickers over his head or gets found upside down in a septic tank after a share crash, but we don't get done in by the unwashed when we're trying to enjoy a spot of hunting and fishing in the countryside. We're safe from that sort of thing.
Aren't we?"
After I read this, I knew I was going to love this book. This is the second one I've read from this author, but it's been 8 years since I read the first one.

Tam McInnis, his son Paul, Tam's friend Robert, and Paul's friend Spammy, have been set up to take the fall for the murder of Voss. Tam McInnes had giving Nicole an envelope, before the Voss murder, telling her to hold on to it, and to open it if he did not come back after the weekend.
Nicole's boss Mr Campbell tells her the background behind Tam McInnis:
" 'he was a burglar. Not by profession, just by, well, a combination of circumstance, naivety and probably a bit of booze, in the first instance. He and his Pals robbed country mansions; you know that much. The first one was the home - a home - of the man who took the decision to close down the car plant where they had all worked, because labor was cheaper in the Third World. They had intended the robbery as a protest, a stunt, if you like; said they were originally planning to give the gear back. However... To cut a long story short, when it became apparent that nobody had a bloody clue who had done it, they decided to keep their mouths shut and ended up doing it again someplace else. The spree lasted a few months; they hit I think seven, maybe eight places. But the thing is, they mostly hit places when they were empty; and if someone was going to be home, they made sure they were in and out without a soul knowing. Do you see what I'm saying?'
She nodded and smiled, feeling a welcome moment of comfort as some aspect of solidity of reassurance returned.
'they never hurt anyone,' she said.
They were dubbed "Robin's Hoods."

The prime minister to Scotland does not feel any loyalty to Scotland. Though his father is Scottish, his mother is English. For the PR value of it, he goes to a football (soccer) game, but he's embarrassed in it, and the press has a field day with it.
When the announcers say that he is in the crowd, the crowd starts booing, and a concerted chanting begins:
" 'durty English bastard. Durty English bastard.'
'Ally Dalgleish, you're a wanker, you're a wanker - Ally Dalgleish, you're a donkey's arse.'
But the nightmare didn't end there. It turned out some malignant and no doubt pinko director at the BBC had chosen to zoom in on his face during the pre-match playing of the national anthem, and of course after the first roll on the drums he had launched full-throated into 'God save our gra... ' before stopping as he realized that everyone else was singing 'oh flower of Scotland'. To compound the gaffe; he didn't know any of the words to the stupid bloody dirge, and the cameras had returned a couple of times to show him closed-mouth and blushing as those all around him strove to burst a lung. "
This crooked politician is involved in the murder of Voss up to his eyeballs.

It all goes back to the start of sending off all the jobs from the First World to the Third World. Margaret Thatcher was a huge proponent of this, but our own crooked politicians had their hands in it up to their shoulders.
"We have to wreck the unions. We have to slash jobs. We have to worry less about health and safety, because it eats into profit. We have to decimate wages, because we're in a global labor market now, and that means we're competing with the Third World.
......
Of course it was all fucking stitch-up. What had later been discovered by this investigative hack was that the government instigated the whole thing. They had very quietly decided to pull the plug on the subsidies, and tipped the wink to the americans, assuring them that there would be no public blame, and then there was no potential for damage to 'the special relationship.' [of English capitalists to American capitalists?]
Why?
Christ, why not?
The government had nothing to lose. The money that would have gone into subsidizing Meiklewood [car factory where Tam McInnes and his chum Robert worked] could be spent on something useful instead, like nuclear submarines, or tax cuts. And the loss of a few thousand jobs wasn't a drawback, it was a bonus. Mass unemployment wasn't a government failure, it was a government strategy - as everyone well knew. It was the weapon they used to break unions, force down wages, dictate conditions. But it was more sophisticated than that. It wasn't merely a question of finding any three or four million people to haunt the thoughts and weaken the resolve of every disgruntled employee. It was a specific three or four million people, Tam knew.
It was three or four million people like him.
They hadn't been out just to break their strength - they had been out to break their spirit. To do is to be; the Tories took away what they did. They took away what they were, took away what their fathers had been, took away their past and their legacy, and left them not just without means, but without purpose. And a man without purpose offers Little Resistance as a foe. He has nothing to fight for, and no comrades in arms.
Steel. Call. Ships. Cars.
They closed whole industries.
Scotland had to change, the Tories insisted. It's days of heavy industry were gone, and it's future, as envisaged by Thatcher, was as a 'service economy'. Tam would have found the idea hilarious if the reality hadn't been so fucking painful."
And all of that leads us to where we are now. Fucked. Gawd I love this author.

It takes a few dozen pages to get used to the Scottish dialect that the author writes conversations between his characters in. Here's a sample, when the three remaining Robbin Hoods are confronted by two of the men working for Dalgleish on the framing of them. He calls Spammy SKinnymalinky, because Spammy is gaunt and gangly.
" 'Save it, Faither,' Paterson spat. 'this isnae the fuckin' movies. I don't need to prove to masel' that I can waste any I'm yous cunts.' He shook his head derisively. 'you think this gangly yin wasnae just lucky back there? Yous think yous were fuckin' geniuses 'cause the polis never found you? Listen, Faitherr, an' you listen as well, Daddy Long Legs. The only reason yous cunts made it this far is because they were followin' orders to look in the wrang places, an' because they knew we had yous in oor sights the whole fuckin' time. Wan phone call, wan order, and yous three were dropped. And the phone call's came, by the way.' "

Well, I had a few moments where I was on the edge of the seat, thinking Jack Parlabane and his fiance Sarah were going to bite the dust, but Jack Parlabane knows what he's doing.

Great political and capitalists put-down. If only we had a few people like Jack Parlabane around now.


( )

Catching up with Jack Parlabane is always a guilty pleasure.
Number 2 in a series which now numbers up to 7 ( )

This is my second book of the Jack Parlabane series. I read the first, Quite Ugly One Morning, recently and found this one at the big library book sale last month, which luckily is the second of the series. I have enjoyed them both. They are quite funny and entertaining. I like his other series, featuring Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McCleod, a little bit more, but I read that his next book will feature Jack. So, I now I want to read the rest of that series (there are a total of five, I think, so three more to go) before the new one comes out.
This novel has a strong political bent against the Conservative Party in Britain. ( )

A wealthy and powerful newspaper owner is murdered in a luxury house in Perthshire. The police have apprehended the four burglars responsible. But one of them has left a package with his lawyer, to be opened if he didn’t make a quick return to her office. And the security consultant Donald Lafferty, friend of journalist Jack Parlabane, dies minutes after uttering an oblique message to the assembled TV crews outside the police station where the suspects are being held. A tale of intrigue and conspiracy follows where skulduggery at the heart of government is revealed and unravelled. While the plot and its resolution is not entirely convincing the book is vastly readable with the occasional joke or reference thrown in to lighten things. I particularly liked, “I’m a man of stealth and haste.”

It is interesting that this was written in the dog days of the 1990s Conservative Government yet reads as well now as it might have done then; as if nothing has changed, which of course, in some respects, it hasn’t.

I have noted before Brookmyre’s usage “borne of” when “born of” makes more sense. He adds here, “up to high doe” (which gave me an image of a deer on a plinth) and “thrusted” as the past tense of thrust.

This was only Brookmyre’s second novel so a few infelicities are to be expected. But he has the increasingly irritating habit here of beginning every new scene in medias res and then flashing back to its beginning. He also feels the need to provide backstory for every new viewpoint character when they take up the narrative thread. While this is a timeworn literary technique it is no more than a form of info dumping.

The Country of the Blind is a Brookmyre. It does what it says on the tin. All well and good. Sometimes that is what hits the spot. ( )

Journalist Jack Parlabane is back in this delicious book of political plots, conspiracy theories, and bizarre killings. Following up on the first book in the series, we find Jack almost married to Dr. Sarah Slaughter and contemplating taking a step away from his usual undercover, dangerous ways of getting his story.

Politics are a dirty business and none are dirtier than in Christopher Brookmyre’s Country of the Blind. It’s all about power, money and who has control. A important power broker, owner and publisher of many European newspapers , along with his wife and two body guards are found brutally murdered and four bumbling thieves are quickly arrested for the crime. But when witnesses or anyone taking a second look at the crime start dying in mysterious ways, Jack Parlabane can no longer sit on the sidelines.

Non-stop action, thrills and laughter are trademarks of this series. But it’s also refreshing to find a well crafted story with adult themes that are valid and eye opening. The fact that Brookmyre is able to express his own opinions as part of a thumping good read makes it all the more engaging. Brookmyre has his finger firmly on his reader’s pulse and delivers chills and thrills in a very stylish manner. ( )