Quite Ugly One Evening by
Chris Brookmyre
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Jack Parlabane, investigative journalist is approached by someone he knows at MI5 to investigate the decades-old death of an undercover agent. The agent in question was investigating rumours that a Russian spy had infiltrated a rich, influential family with connections to the higher echelons of the civil service, his death might have been natural or he could have been poisoned by the Russians. A recent release of information has made the latter seem more probable.
The family in question created a much beloved 1960s children's TV series (I was thinking like Thunderbirds but set in space). The series has fallen in and out of favour in the intervening period fuelled by nostalgia, the launch on video/DVD etc but has recently come in for a lot of criticism, not least from within parts of the family, for its antiquated and problematic themes (think Pidgeon English, goodies are white, baddies are people of colour etc). Anyway, the entire family will be attending a cruise from England to the USA which hosts a fan convention, which will give Jack some time to get close to the family and see what they can recall about the agent.
In terms of the family dynamics, there's the usual infighting between generations and siblings, added to which a Mitford-esque split in the younger generation between those who want the series to remain authentic (and argue that the Woke agenda would destroy the heart of the series) and those who want better representation and removal of the problematic themes. Added to which, a right-wing billionaire wants to buy the rights to the series from the family and the offer has divided the family in different ways again.
Inevitably, one of the family is murdered, and Jack appears to have been the designated fall guy - can he discover the identity of the murderer before he is charged?
Full disclosure, I think this is the ninth Jack Parlabane novel but the first one I have read, so I don't know whether they are always so political but there is a lot of discussion of the right wing agenda, Putin, Trump, etc. While I 100% agree with the politics I am not sure I wanted it to be so full on in a detective story - but again maybe if I had read the previous eight books I would be expecting it?
Anyway, I really enjoyed it, although Jack seems pretty athletic for a sixty-year old man (she says as an almost sixty-year old woman), I wonder if Chris Brookmyre is still writing him as the thirty-year old he was in the first book. My only gripe was that I thought the murderer's identity was a bit obvious.
(view spoiler)[Otherwise what was the point of having a character who was ever present but seemed to be the only one without a motive? (hide spoiler)]I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
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