An audio book set in Edinburgh.
Bradley (aka many other names) is the victim of road rage - a big man in a Honda shunts into his hired car. Martin, an onlooker, saves him. Martin had been an RE teacher in the Lake District until he did a CW course. Now he's written a novel a year and has a TV contract. Gloria, 59, is in range too. Her unloved husband Graham, millionaire builder, has just been checked by the fraud squad. Jackson, an ex-copper living in France, has supplied the money for his partner's play on the fringe. He sees the incident too. Archy is school age, his shoplifting interrupted by the incident.
Gloria's husband Graham has a heart-attack while with a "discipline" call-girl, Russian (she works for "Favours"), and is taken to intensive care. Gloria goes through his phone and finds he intends to get rid of her.
Jackson finds a dead woman in the sea, nearly drowning while trying to retrieve the body - a Russian blonde girl. He's interviewed by Angus's mother, Louise, 38, an inspector. Martin's house-guest, Richard Moat, is doing comedy on the Fringe. Jackson watches him perform. Afterwards Jackson's attacked in an alley by "Honda Man".
Martin has stayed with Bradley while he was in hospital. He's told to keep an eye on him, post-concussion, when he's released. They go to Bradley's hotel room. While Bradley's asleep Martin looks in his bag. In it is a box. In the box a hidden compartment and a gun. We learn that on holiday in St.Petersburg something happened to Martin. He wakes to find that his wallet and the latest draft of his work in progress has been stolen overnight. Returning home he finds police in his house - Moat's been killed in his bed by "Honda man" - mistaken identity. He'd been found by the cleaner who works for Favours.
Louise (who lives in a poorly-built house built by Hatter Homes, Graham's company) wonders if Jackson is a hoaxer or the murderer, though she fancies him. Martin too is under suspicion. Jackson goes to a Russian circus where he sees "Honda Man" attack a young Russian woman. The woman later tells Jackson to stay out of it. "Honda man" is Graham's hired thug, Terry Smith. The Russian call-girl turns up at Gloria's with a plan. She has Graham's bank account details and suggests that the two of them go to Switzerland. Smith turns up. Jackson and Martin are there too. Martin kills Terry to stop him killing Tatania and Jackson. Jackson, Gloria and Tatania make their getaways. We finally learn that a girl in Martin's St.Petersburg hotel room hit her head and died. Martin pushed the body out of the window to avoid complications.
At the end Jackson's phone call to Louise tidies up loose ends, though it's a surprise to learn that Bradley had been contracted by Gloria to kill Graham. I thought he might have been hired by Graham to kill Jackson.
The subtitle of the book is "A Jolly Murder Mystery", which describes the spirit it should be read in. Anything for a laugh. For each character we get entertaining potted bios in their own words - parents, jobs, hopes, religion, etc. None of them is phased by deaths. They all easily drift off into detailed fantasies. Their post-war parents are disappointments. Gloria's Xmas description is too long, but that could be said about most of the sections. Once the stage is reach where each revealed fact connects with more than one other, the chain reactions made the book a page-turner.
Other reviews
- Justine Jordan
- Amanda Craig (The narrative technique shuttles between characters' thoughts and perceptions, creating little mysteries that hook the reader into staying with her throughout cascades of apparently unconnected detail. ... Novels about novelists are almost always a mistake, and this one has too many rants about agents and publishers to avoid the impression of self-indulgence wantonly smashing up the careful realism of the rest.)
- bookloverssanctuary
- Kirkus review (There are running jokes and an enjoyable parade of neat resolutions, but no satisfying dénouement. Everything is connected, often amusingly or cleverly, but nothing matters much. A technically adept and pleasurable tale, but Atkinson isn’t stretching herself.)
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