Quite Ugly One Morning

I hope the rest of the series is as good as this one, which was fantastic! I relished the black humour, the characters, the Edinburgh setting, even the opening scene that was gross in its array of bodily fluids and yet had me laughing out loud. I loved the idiomatic words and phrases too. Thankfully, Brookmyre doesn't shy away from using them. Journalist Jack Parlabane is investigating why he was threatened at his last job in L.A. and had to leave the country, which led him to another story in Scotland. Are they connected? The newly formed National Health Service Trust is diverting money to the executive offices instead of hospitals. And diverting bodies too...

Christopher Brookmyre's first novel certainly does not pull any punches. The first chapter features a crime scene festooned with every bodily fluid imaginable, described in detail that tests the strongest of stomachs. Fortunately, unremitting gore is not on the agenda for the whole book; once we meet the tough, resourceful journalist Jack Parlabane, there is more focus on the biting satire and less on the bodily carnage. (There are still some pockets of grossness after that, but later on in the story there is more humour to leaven the grossness. More along the lines of Reservoir Dogs.) The story itself sees Parlabane digging deep into financial skulduggery at a National Health Service Trust in Edinburgh, in a scenario that feels much show more too real to be funny. What is funnier is some of the technology: since this was published in 1996, people still use floppy discs on their computers! Awww! How quaint.

I liked this book for its setting, its incredibly dark humour and the risks it took. But had I known it would start out like that, I would have started reading it at home instead of on the bus...

If you haven't tried Brookmyre before, I'd probably suggest checking out his Jasmine Sharp series first (starting with Where the Bodies Are Buried), if only because it is a lot less gross. But if you're a regular viewer of shows with lots of gore and spatter (e.g. medical reality shows, perhaps The Walking Dead), you might be okay with Quite Ugly One Morning. show less

When a neighbour of Jack Parlabane is gruesomely murdered and he is found wandering through the murder site by the police, the investigative reporter explains that he’s a dedicatedly, professional noisy bastard. With the help of DC Jenny Dalziel and the victim’s ex-wife Dr. Sarah Slaughter, he is soon on the trail of the killer of Dr. Jeremy Ponsonby and eventually exposes a much deeper plot to enrich a slimy businessman at the expense of the public’s health and taxes.

Jack himself is in Edinburgh as he is running from trouble he got into in Los Angeles, and he was in LA hiding out from trouble he got into in London. When a story catches his interest, he loses track of everything else in order to follow the scent, even if he has to show more break a few rules or laws to do it.

Quite Ugly One Morning is the first book in the series by Christopher Brookmyre and it’s a humdinger. I found myself laughing out loud and being grossed out at the same time. The first chapter set the tone for this wildly entertaining ride. I found the fast paced plot to be both witty and irreverent. Perhaps not for the weak-stomached, but I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next Jack Parlabane book. show less

Seldom I find a mystery story laced with so much wit and humour, as well as some truly disgusting scenes, as this one - the scenes where we see the hired killer in action are very funny in a black humour sort of narration, and somehow it reminded me of the two kidnappers in "Fargo" - tragicomic to say the least!
The story is full of twists and turns, there's some interesting swearing terms (probably quite common in Scotland) that had me laughing out loud or grinning, depending on where I was at the moment, and the end is a good one too. What's not to love here? It is what I would call an "instant satisfaction" book, quick and easy to read and won't have you bored, guaranteed!

For a book which opens with the discovery of a mutliated corpse surrounded by all manner of bodily emissions and excretia, this is very funny indeed. Brookmyre manages the possibly unique feat of marrying a murder mystery plot with politcal satire and a touch of romance. It may also give you a touch of deja vu, since it is lamenting the NHS "reforms" of the Primary Care Trusts and the focus on money & efficiency over and above patient welfare. Read it and weep. With laughter. A superb little novel. I will definitely be looking out for more by this author.

I've never been a fan of crime fiction, it tends to be about leading to definitive answers, and that's not what I like in my literature. Brookmyre's my one great exception. He kind of sneaked up on me, constantly mentioned by friends who shared similar tastes as a top read. SO I picked up a copy of A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away and... yeah, you know where this is going. Smart, snarky, lurid, pop culture literate, angry and energetic - it was wonderfully bracing, a jolt to the system, a literary defibrillator. Probably too lowbrow to be considered for high faluting literary prizes but sod that, this was relentlessly entertaining stuff. And I've been dawdling through his back catalogue ever since, eventually working my way back to the show more start.

A word of warning, Broomkmyre's as proudly and defiantly Scottish as Irvine Welsh. It permeates Brookmyre's outlook, from his politics, through the humour and right through to the language. With the often phonetically rendered slang this couldn't happen anywhere but Edinburgh, an Edinburgh that's more colourful and vivid than Welsh's more self-absorbed books allows.

Brookmyre's an energetic writer at the best of times, and Quite Ugly One Morning turns up that energy to eleven. It's got the unpredictability, vitality and occasional crudeness of all the best debuts have, the sheer glee of someone finally let loose in a literary sandpit. It's in your face from the start, with a vivid description of a horrific crime scene, the horror undercut by judicious employment of human bodily waste. And Brookmyre's caustic humour's there from that start, the police officers almost slapstick in their attempts to get through a huge puddle of vomit. Quite literally stomach churning but an instant hook, and welcome light years away from the trend for forensic descriptions that leave you feeling nothing. Brookmyre's demands that you care, that you at least get a sense of horror from the gore he often employs (the macabre mutilations inflicted on Mortlake here are wince inducing, almost making the character sympathetic despite his actions).

Other familiar Brookmyre tropes are present and correct. My views on the Margaret Thatcher's Tory regime chime with the author's, so I'm happy to go along with the richly deserved kicking he hands to the Thatcherist ideology and those who follow it. The anti-Tory rage (namechecking Thatcher, Tebbit and Virginia Bottomley) dates the book a little, but it's always good to have a reminder of what a vile self serving regime it was. Main villain Stephen Lime is the grotesque villain embodying Establishment cancers that Brookmyre excels at, from his name (Stephen Lime, S Lime, geddit?) to his ultra capitalist outlook. Brookmyre's exceptional at getting inside his mindset and imbuing him with a certain humanity without ever leaving the reader in any doubt that he's Thatcherite scum. In that sense Brookmyre's almsot a Biblically moralistic writer, with the good and bad guys clearly labelled up and ending up receiving their just desserts. It'd be preachily simplistic but for the pissed off black humour that gives the book its energy.

Parlabane himself isn't a memorable creation on the face of it, a slightly seedy bundle of one liners and handy abilities who acts as the Angel of Vengeance to Brookmyre's authorial God. But it's the flashes of background we get that brings him to life, hangovers, hitmen and hotel room shagging. It's the details, the texture that make him memorable. He's a moral journalist who's learned the hard way that things are not always as they seem and powerful people are, by and large, absolute bastards. Like Roger Cook, but likable and with added hubris and understanding of the bigger picture. Sometimes his resources strains credibility, such as his former shag from Companies House, but Parlabane's undoubtedly a man who'd exploit every possible asset and have all sorts of strange contacts. In a Brookmyre book, what might seem outlandish is just part of the circus.

And one more reason to love it? If you take the 'One' in the title in Roman numeral form the initials of the title spell 'quim'. Yeah, it's not big but it's clever and, most importantly, funny show less

Christopher Brookmyre stands alone on my shelf, and I'm sure on all other shelves in the world; I don't know any books quite like his. He is uniquely unsettling, warped, funny and mindbogglingly clever in his writing of crime fiction (a genre that I would normally never pick up).

Quite Ugly One Morning is the first book containing Scottish detective Jack Parlabane. It is a fulfilling murder mystery, with scenes so twisted it will have you grimacing through your fingers, trying to work out the case. This book is a departure from the books I would normally read however it was thoroughly captivating and joyfully horrible! I wholeheartedly recommend Christopher Brookmyre to anyone that likes to figure out the story and that has a very dark show more sense of humour (and strong constitution!). show less