Colin Bateman (1) (1962–)

A novel with a title as cool as “Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men” is just begging to be at least taken off of the shelf. If that catchy handle isn’t enough, the boxer throwing a jab on the cover, with a little mouse atop his glove, should certainly get your attention. If I hadn’t already been directed to this book by my friend, Glenn, that title and cover art would have gotten me to give this one a try.
Bateman grabbed a hold of me with the first paragraph.

“Peace had settled over the show more city like the skin on a rancid custard. Everybody wanted it, just not in that form. The forecast remained for rain, with widespread terrorism.”

Boy, Howdy! I think this was the most fun I’ve had with a book in all of 2021. I love boxing, comedy, and weird characters. This page-turning thrill ride is the crazy misadventures of unlikely, heavyweight contender, Fat Boy McMaster and his entourage preparing for a mismatch of a title shot with the champion, Mike Tyson. Fat Boy “can’t fight, he has the charisma of a bag of sugar and more in common with tripe than hype. He is the Great Fat Hope”.
Our motley crew welcome the chance to leave the atrocities of Northern Ireland behind for the more settled conditions of New York City. Ha! Right from the frying pan, and into the fire.

Special thanks to Glenn Russell for introducing me to Colin Bateman’s work. show less

I found this compulsively readable and almost equal parts funny and cringe. The Man with No Name who runs No Alibis, a crime fiction bookshop in Belfast, is a walking bundle of neuroses, and it was distressing how many of those I could relate to. (The sheer number of everyday things that the Man nopes out of, I have noped out of at least once in my life with precisely the same sort of self-protective anxiety.) It’s definitely a darker brand of humour but not darker in terms of crime: show more it’s mostly a puzzle sort of crime with a reasonably low body count. I would read another book in the series if I could get a hold of it. show less

The unnamed narrator of Mystery Man owns a crime fiction bookshop in Belfast, No Alibis: Murder is Our Business, and when the private detective next door disappears his clients make their way into the bookstore for assistance. Having something of a lack of clientele our mystery man successfully tackles an investigation into the search for some sexy leather pants presumed filched by a dry cleaner. This proves to be the start of a whole new career for him and he is soon joined by a quirky show more sidekick to solve The Case of the Dancing Jews.

Our mysterious narrator is a cross between Adrian Monk and Bernard from Black Books (though he’s not a drunk). He is afraid of just about everything and has a number of compulsions including the need to scratch any car that has a personalised number plate with a nail he keeps specifically for the purpose. As a retailer he is unlikely to garner untold riches as his ‘strategy’ encompasses sentiments like

“I see the need to attract customers into the store, I just don’t often feel the want”

and

“I like to think the atmosphere in the store is finally balanced between the pull-up-a-chair-and-peruse-from-our-books-for-nothing Borders and the reading room at Guantanamo Bay”.

The story is a satire on the crime fiction genre. If you have never read a crime fiction novel in your life you will in all likelihood not find it humorous. I don’t mean this to be patronising but some of the negative reviews I read seem to have been written by people who have never read a single work of crime fiction and their incomprehension interpreted as criticism seems a little unjust. If you have at least dabbled in mysteries then you should enjoy the satirical elements of the story as well as the way the narrative weaves in commonly held gripes of the genre’s aficionados. For example when asked whether the new James Patterson is in, our bookseller responds

“Sir, I replied with suitable haughtiness, because I know my onions, the old James Patterson isn’t in. This is a James Patterson-free zone. Once we begin stocking Pattersons we’ll have no room for anything else. We may as well change the name of the shop to Patterson Books”.

Of course natty one-liners aren’t enough to sustain a whole book but fortunately there is a jolly romp of a mystery here too. The main case has dead bodies a-plenty, possible Nazis and even a car chase which is no less dramatic because it turns out to have been completely unnecessary. It is satisfactorily resolved with a modern twist on the traditional dénouement (one is forced to ponder what Hercule Poroit might have made of PowerPoint) and a humdinger of a cliff hanger.

Funny-ness is such a subjective thing. Loads of people told me that David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day would make me laugh ‘til I hurt but I abandoned the book at the half-way point without ever cracking a smile (and I grizzle to this day about having spent $22.95 on it). So I’m not going to tell you this book will make you laugh. All I’ll say is that it made me become the latest crazy giggling lady on my city’s public transport and I think you’d be daft not to at least sneak a peek at the first couple of short chapters in your local bookshop. If it is your kind of humour then there is lots of it and reading the book will make your day. show less

Once again Colin Bateman delivers a book that is both hilarious and outrageous. This is the third in the Dan Starkey series and in this one, Dan, his wife and newborn baby go to Wrathlin Island. Dan has been sent there to investigate the rumors that the Messiah has been born there and is about to start school.

He finds the island is a place that believes they are sheltering God’s daughter and are working hard to protect her. The islands council have taken the law into their on hands and show more have outlawed liquor as well was television. Dan is suffering without his drink and his entertainment but manages to wise-crack his way around the island, making more enemies than friends. Facing guns, knives, beatings and a blind population, he struggles to expose the truth. Although the book stretches the imagination almost to the breaking point, the journey is a fun one.

Turbulent Priests is chock full of witty dialogue, humor, desperation and weirdness. I am already looking forward to my next Dan Starkey book. show less