Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks

A carefully spoiler-free review.

I'd been in the mood to read a fast, fun thriller for awhile, and as I had several unread Brookmyre novels on my shelf I was definitely gravitating in that direction. When I found the audiobook of Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks I was sold – even though it's the fifth of the Jack Parlabane adventures and I haven't read all the previous ones yet, I didn't expect it to be a big obstacle as they are, like most crime series', not direct follow ons in anything other than events in the main characters' lives.

I must confess that as the story opened I felt slightly disappointed. The extract from a book by fictional Mail journalist Jillian Noble about an encounter with the supernatural seemed to be show more somewhat heavy-handed in signposting the direction the novel might take. Noble is smug, snotty, overly credulous and sneeringly dismissive of sceptical rationalism – so strongly antithetical to both Brookmyre and Parlabane that the set up for a fall seemed sadly obvious. Ironically, I should have had more faith in the author, because while it is indeed a set up, it is the reader who is being set up for a sudden, unexpected curve ball coming out of left field that whips any assumptions out from under you like a deftly pulled tablecloth. This is a trick Brookmyre pulls again and again throughout this superbly constructed, extremely well written book. He leads your expectations from one point of view before bringing in another angle to make you realise that you are balancing precariously on a crumbling ledge of unfounded assumption rather than the firm, flat bedrock of facts. There are also dawning moments of realisation that made me laugh out loud, to add to the many trademark chuckles you'd expect from a writer who has been called 'the Scottish Carl Hiaasen'. The twists and changes of perspective kept me guessing right up to the joyous payoff (although I had worked out a couple of the facts I wasn't certain of them, and doubt it was my own Holmsian deductive abilities that allowed me to work them out so much as cunning winks from the author to make me feel better about being duped!)

I realise I've said nothing about the plot – deliberately, as this would be an easy book to give spoilers on. Suffice to say it is a book about belief, deception and assumptions. If you like your thrillers clever, thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny (not to mention quite sweary and not infrequently violent, although in this case less violent than usual), I highly recommend you acquaint yourself with Christopher Brookmyre show less

This audio book was part of my revisit of the entire Parlabane series so I was cheating a bit, having already done "all the emotions" over the opening line of the blurb.

I do get the idea of telegraphing the end of Jack and the whole Parlabane series was going to grab some attention. And I understand fully that being elected Rector of Kelvin University was a bit of a parting surprise. I can even get behind the idea that Parlabane going out in a blaze of psychic attention seeking was just the ticket for getting your average fan steamed up and in a take no prisoners mood. And I will admit that even on first reading I was firmly trying to convince myself that "this is Christopher Brookmyre right?" And there's that "Or is he?". Is that the show more sliver of light in an otherwise hefty cloud of "what the's"?

Book number five in the Jack Parlabane series, ATTACK OF THE UNSINKABLE RUBBER DUCK is a glorious / clever title, for a seriously good book. Good because he's launching an almighty forehand at the spoon bending fraternity, with a very nice backhand lob at the creationists along the way (it's Australian Open time / I might have heard some terminology floating around...). Good because I'm particularly partial to Christopher Brookmyre when he mounts his umpires chair and starts chucking some pointed commentary from on high. Good in that it's got it's moments of hilarity and sheer weirdness. Good because he really shouldn't be rector of Kelvin University, and yet he really could be a worthy one. Perhaps not quite so good because it does take a while to get going, which did stand out a lot more in audio than I remember on the page. Even better ultimately because it's a complex plot, with the return of some favourite characters (Spammy has to be one of the all time greats - and the narrator's voice for him in these books has been gold).

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/attack-unsinkable-rubber-duck-christophe... show less

Plot:
Jack Parlabane has never believed in ghosts. Which is kinda awkward since he now seems to be one. So he tells us what happened so far – and how it all connects to the psychic Gabriel Lafayette who offered himself to science, to prove once and for all that the paranormal exists.

Even though I caught most of the plot-twists that were to come later pretty early on, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks is definitely my favourite Jack Parlabane book. Probably because it’s the geekiest. It’s funny, I loved the rants and it features an honest to goodness browncoat. What’s not to love?

Read more at my blog: http://kalafudra.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/attack-of-the-unsinkable-rubber-ducks-...

Wonderful stuff yet again from Brookmyre. The 'unsinkable rubber ducks' are those who cling to belief in the paranormal despite any evidence to the contrary which may be thrown at them. As with the theological speculations underpinning the adolescent shenanigans and zestful slaughter of 'Pandaemonium', there's serious intellectual and moral issues beneath this tale of murderous psychic fakery. Fake medium and a fake investigator join forces to con not only a university but potentially a country, leaving a trail of corpses in their wake, but not necessarily the corpses you'd expect from some of the first-person narratives. Oh and Jehovah's Witnesses get a good kicking too. Thank God for a wickedly funny and stylish crime writer you can show more actually re-read, rather than the exhausting airless and ultimately humourless workings-out of a Cornwell or a Grisham. Fab. Love 'im. show less

Jack Parlabane doesn’t believe in ghosts or the afterlife. And yet here he is, dead, with an omniscient view of his latest investigation, and the case still needs to be cracked. But perhaps this whole being-dead thing can turn to his advantage…

This was a good story and felt somewhat timely, given that it deals with credulity, manipulation, and questions of faith vs. science. The title comes from a quote by James Randi and refers to people who continue to believe in supernatural or paranormal phenomena despite having said belief debunked. (In fact, it was Randi’s death in October 2020 that prompted me to finally pick up this book.)

This was a bit of a slow burn for me; the second half really ramps up the suspense and had me reading show more on to find out how he did it. I also got a bit muddled with some of the chronology and switching between multiple first-person narrators in the same chapter.

This was the fifth book in the Jack Parlabane series and does contain references to previous cases but no spoilers, apart from the fact that Parlabane survived his previous four cases!

And as you might expect from a Brookmyre novel, there are some occasionally visceral details—he is excellent at choosing just the right detail to make the reader squirm.

I would perhaps recommend this more if you’re already familiar with the character of Parlabane or Brookmyre’s writing. show less

Despite having the most amazingly catchy title, this is not a book about rubber ducks. Rather it is about the stubborn state of mind that leads us to hold on to our beliefs, spiritual or not, regardless of any evidence we may face to the contrary.
The paranormal is a slight departure for Brookmyre but, through investigative journalist Jack Parlabane, he manages to maintain his characteristic combination of the fantastic and the wryly sceptical. His humour never fails him and just as the conjurors and psychics display a few sleights of hand, Brookmyre also has a few up his own sleeve. Essentially, this is a story about an exercise in deception (and to talk about the plot in any detail will spoil the book) that at times looks like it’s show more almost going to be a supernatural thriller.
As always with this author, though, there are more serious issues at work here, specifically the conflict between rationalism and unjustified faith. Whilst the main plot concerns individuals attempting to foist the likes of creationism and Intelligent Design on the school curriculum, one wonders what Occam’s Razor would make of the news story which has dominated the headlines over the summer months. When there are such radically different viewpoints at work (and when the way it is reported seems to be dependent on geography), you know for sure that both can’t be correct.
Like the best of his work, the plotline flirts dangerously with the utterly ridiculous (the hilarious conclusion certainly falls into this category). Brookmyre has once again written a crime thriller that leaves you with a smile on your face. show less

I loved Christopher Brookmyre’s early books and will admit to having a slight crush on his investigative journalist character, Jack Parlabane, but I was under-whelmed by some of his later books and I haven’t bothered with quit e a few of the recent ones. But if “Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks” is anything to go by, he is back on form.

Once more it features the cynical journalist Parlabane, but this time he is narrating the book from beyond the grave, and the theme of the book is the paranormal and fake psychics. The title refers to some people’s unshakeable beliefs despite huge evidence to contrary. Essentially this is a crime novel, but the trickery of the celebrity mediums and the human psychology behind it makes for show more an interesting setting.

Yet again, this is a book with a split narrative. Parlabane is the main narrator and his deadpan Scottish humour will be familiar to anyone who has read Brookmyre’s other books, but he shares the narration with a student caught up in the events and a female journalist with opposing views to Parlabane. The parts by the latter are dryer in style than the rest and the opening chapter seemed to drag, but it is worth sticking with as the story soon picks up.

I guessed a couple of the twists before they were revealed but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this. A good light read. show less