Cameron Colley is a journalist who prefers hard-hitting moralizing exposés and hitting hard a variety of drugs, and between the two he spends his time ruling the world in the computer game _Despot_, in Iain Bank's novel _Complicity_. Eventually he becomes wrapped up in several cases where a murderer is taking justice into his own hands, dishing out violent and disgusting torments upon individuals he deems morally corrupt. The investigation into these cases leads police directly to Colley's door, even as he vigorously denies his involvement.

_Complicity_ is, basically, a pretentious mystery, overwrought intellectual discourse between characters squeezing the life out of what could have been a very compelling plot. Banks drags from the throats of his characters such silly moralizing, on both the individual and cosmic scale, that any excitement or anticipation is drowned out.

Colley is presented as a supposedly investigative reporter, his recent stories toned down by his editor, eliminating Colley's righteous indignation. And yet, he seems to do very little investigation at all, spending his time reminiscing about his past and contemplating his current, drug-enduced philosophizing. He plays a computer game called _Despot_, a kind of _Civilization_ where the player makes moral decisions (on both a macro- and micro-political scale), and his progress in the game symbolically represents the state of morality the reader is, assumedly, unable to figure out.

The blurb on the back over (of my edition, at any rate) suggests that Colley is going to be mixed up in the murders, as a suspect and as an invesigative reporter. However, his involvement with the murders doesn't take place until later in the novel, and indeed Colley plays no part in the crimes at all until the police arrest him and he has to, yet again, reminisce to prove his innocence. The crimes themselves are generally just gruesome, because we know nothing about the criminal until the very, very end of the novel, and so are unable to dislike him, sympathize with him, or feel anything more than just disgust at his conception of justice. There is, really, no mystery in this novel at all--really, nothing compelling. We're _supposed_ to feel something, _expected_ to generate some personal, moral response, but there's no reason to care.

Banks' writing is generally well-wrought and sophisticated--for example, his stream of consciousness during Colley's drug use works very well, and I have no complaints there.

Throughout the novel, I often thought that Jonathan Kellerman or Patricia Cornwell could have taken the mystery aspect of the story and turned it into a good thriller. Iain Banks simply chokes the mystery with boring moralizing. Two stars. ( )

Another winner. Takes a while to get going and some of the narrative describing the protagonist's doings in the early part of the book are lackluster but as the stately wheels of the plot start turning it gets better and better, with some truly gripping revelations towards the end. Good stuff! ( )

I was attracted by the political element of the story, and also the fact that parts of it are written in second person, an interesting idea that I am exploring at the moment in my own writing. Unfortunately I found that the second-person passages are short, and the political element is underplayed - someone is attacking people who have committed terrible crimes, e.g. arms dealers, child pornographers, etc., but there's little real examination of the moral issues involved. It becomes a standard thriller, with the hero accused of the murders and needing to find the real killer before it's too late. The trouble is, the real killer is so blindingly obvious that I spent most of the book just frustrated, waiting for the 'hero' to figure it out. Uh, your best friend, ex-army, well trained in killing people but now disillusioned with life and living on his own in a run-down hotel in the Highlands? Hello? Do you really need 300 pages to figure this out? ( )

I found this a formulaic sort of book playing playing to the British fascination with SAS type stories, compromising a long series of gratuitously sadistic murders on the flimsiest political grounds. "Next on the list Mrs T?" really turned me off. It's all investigated by an unbelievable "Gonzo" journalist.

This is the tale of a second-person murderer and a first-person journalist in early 90s Britain. Dynamic characters project themselves and entwine you in a poetic, immersive plot that evokes surprise and wonder. The people are real, the flavour is authentically British, and the vicarious thrills of a gruesome mystery engross.

The murders themselves are a reflection of a vigilante fantasy within the author and the reader. It's an ultimately condemned one, though it leaves me wondering how I would feel about it were I to have a different philosophical or political affiliation.

I recommend it. ( )