A review by pezski
Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre
5.0
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 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
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 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