Category Archives: Bateman

Review: THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL by Bateman

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TheDayOfTheJackRussellAudioAs I was wading through this book I needed something…lighter… to act as a counterweight for my poor brain which was being bombarded with horrid images that will probably give me nightmares for months. I could think of nothing better than another of (Colin) Bateman’s witty satires of the mystery genre, especially read to me by someone with the right accent for the story.

THE DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL follows on from 2009′s MYSTERY MAN and sees the nameless owner of Belfast mystery bookshop No Alibis (Murder is our Business) once again lukewarm on the trail of some dastardly criminals. Ignoring the case which his ex (?) girlfriend solves in 10 minutes thereby robbing our hero of the fee he was planning to charge a woman who thought she was being spied upon, this book focuses its attention on self-made businessman Billy Randall. He needs the services of a private eye because someone made a video of his giant billboard being defaced (a male appendage is painted on giant Billy’s head) and the video has become such a You Tube sensation that Randall fears his business is starting to suffer as no one can take him seriously. The case takes our hero on a strange and wonderfully madcap journey that involves taxidermy, the Chief Constable and MI5.

The hero of this series is…unlikely to say the least. A cynical, self-absorbed, hypochondriac who would be lucky to leap over a small shrub let alone a tall building he is nevertheless strangely compelling even if not likeable in the traditional sense. And he is, for me anyway, terribly funny. I’m not normally a huge fan of the first-person point of view but it works well for comic novels and ‘no-name’s’ voice is one that particularly appeals to me (though I shan’t think too deeply on what shared traits might draw me to him).  I’m not entirely sure the no-named hero shtick is sustainable (even here it was awkward) for more books but, having noticed there are two more in the series already, I’m willing to make allowances due to being so thoroughly entertained each time I pick up one of these novels.

This is definitely a book I think you should sample before purchasing – you’ll know within a few pages whether or not it’s your kind of humour – and you need to be at least a minor fan of the crime genre to really appreciate some of the jokes and digs at recent publishing trends. If you’re lucky enough to share Bateman’s absurd sense of what’s funny then you’re in for a treat. If you are an audiobook fan I’d highly recommend Stephen Armstrong’s narration – he is now the voice of mystery man for me and I am chuffed to see he’s read more of Bateman’s novels for my personal listening pleasure.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Narrator Stephen Armstrong
Publisher Whole Story Audio Books [2010]
ASIN B003UI7ZH0
Length 8 hours 27 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Mystery Man series

Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all

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Imitiation is the sincerest form of flattery so I will copy Kim’s idea of celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by highlighting the Irish books I have reviewed here on the blog. It’s important to note that I’m imitating the idea not the quantity as my 8 books doesn’t really stack up to Kim’s 75. But I am participating in the Irish Reading Challenge this year and have several more books on the TBR stack.

Alan Glynn’s Winterland “…one of those books that defies easy categorisation and is recommended to anyone who enjoys great writing, compelling story-telling and terrific characters”

Bateman’s Mystery Man “a loving satire on the crime fiction genre that turned me into the crazy giggling lady on public transport”

Gene Kerrigan’s The Midnight Choir “is a big novel, not in terms of length (the nine and a half hours listening time flew by) but in terms of its subject. Rather than focusing on a particular incident, investigator or criminal this book depicts a myriad of crimes perpetrated by an assortment of criminals and paints a giant canvas showing how and why crime happens.”

Ian Sansom’s Mr Dixon Disappears “if you can put aside your need for story for a couple of hours and just enjoy the beauty of funny, well constructed sentences and some charming characterisations then I highly recommend the book”

Ken Bruen’s The Dramatist “…a perfect noir tale with the best – most appropriate - ending I’ve read in forever”.

Rob Kitchin’s The Rule Book “On one level a ripping crime fiction yarn which would be pleasing enough but also made me ponder about the role we all play in making things impossible for police in with our insatiable desire for gory details and our seeming unwillingness to accept that real life is rarely, if ever, as simple as portrayed on shows like CSI” and The White Gallows “a captivating and credible reading experience, though not always a comfortable one as it raised issues that are all too real.“

Stuart Neville’s The Ghosts of Belfast “not my favourite of the bunch but a very popular (and award winning) book elsewhere, a bit too testosterone-fuelled and lacking in light and shade for me“

So, Lá ‘le Pádraig sona daoibh go léir

Books of the Month – August 2010

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That Was Then

August was a hectic month involving the country’s most bizarre election (which had me watching far more TV than I normally would) and an invasion from overseas (i.e. family came to visit). Both of these activities left little time for reading let alone blogging about reading. So I only managed to read a paltry 7 books for the month and of those my pick is

  • Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Although it was published more than 40 years ago the book is remarkably undated as well as being taut and intense. I would recommend it to all fans of the modern police procedural who want to know more about the origins of this sub genre.

Honourable mentions for August go to

New Additions

You would think that being as busy/preoccupied as I was during the month I would also have had less time available to acquire books but alas this does not appear to have been the case as 20 books still managed to find their way onto my never-shrinking TBR pile. Sigh. In my defence (should I need one) most of them were pre-orders, mooches and library holds that became available.

Among my new friends are my first Polish crime fiction, another new Australian historical mystery, the last novel I need to read to complete the African leg of my global challenge, a Japanese novel that I have heard many good things about and an Italian legal procedural that looks very promising

What to read next?

Anything really.

I have not finished a book for more than a week which is a real rarity for me and is starting to make me feel extremely crotchety. I have given up entirely on election-watch (we are into our second week of having no government and funnily enough the country hasn’t fallen into turmoil) and my overseas invaders will soon depart which should allow the noise levels to return to a dull roar and my duties as entertainer of young people during heavy rain will no longer be required thereby freeing my leisure time up for reading once again.

I have several books from the library which must be returned soon and I need to do some work on my remaining challenges so coming up you will hopefully see me talking about novels from Canada, Namibia, Ireland, Norway and Scotland.

Chart of the Month

I was curious to see how author gender is reflected in my reading this year as I haven’t made any conscious decisions about whether to read male or female authors. I was amazed to see that of the 100 books I have finished so far in 2010 the gender of the author is split almost exactly down the middle.

Even more interesting to me is that of the 42 top rated books (those rated 4, 4.5 or 5) author gender is once again split almost evenly (though of the six books receiving a 5 rating only 2 are by female authors).

I don’t know that this says anything at all but I found it worthy of a pie chart :)

So, what was your best book for August? Did you add any interesting titles to your TBR? And if you keep track of the books you read have you read more books by men? women? or is your reading even like mine?

Review: Mystery Man by Bateman

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A tip of the hat to Mack of Mack Captures Crime for recommending this book.

The unnamed narrator of Mystery Man owns a crime fiction bookshop in Belfast, No Alibis: Murder is Our Business, and when the private detective next door disappears his clients make their way into the bookstore for assistance. Having something of a lack of clientele our mystery man successfully tackles an investigation into the search for some sexy leather pants presumed filched by a dry cleaner. This proves to be the start of a whole new career for him and he is soon joined by a quirky sidekick to solve The Case of the Dancing Jews.

Our mysterious narrator is a cross between Adrian Monk and Bernard from Black Books (though he’s not a drunk). He is afraid of just about everything and has a number of compulsions including the need to scratch any car that has a personalised number plate with a nail he keeps specifically for the purpose. As a retailer he is unlikely to garner untold riches as his ‘strategy’ encompasses sentiments like

“I see the need to attract customers into the store, I just don’t often feel the want”

and

“I like to think the atmosphere in the store is finally balanced between the pull-up-a-chair-and-peruse-from-our-books-for-nothing Borders and the reading room at Guantanamo Bay”.

The story is a satire on the crime fiction genre. If you have never read a crime fiction novel in your life you will in all likelihood not find it humorous. I don’t mean this to be patronising but some of the negative reviews I read seem to have been written by people who have never read a single work of crime fiction and their incomprehension interpreted as criticism seems a little unjust. If you have at least dabbled in mysteries then you should enjoy the satirical elements of the story as well as the way the narrative weaves in commonly held gripes of the genre’s aficionados. For example when asked whether the new James Patterson is in, our bookseller responds

“Sir, I replied with suitable haughtiness, because I know my onions, the old James Patterson isn’t in. This is a James Patterson-free zone. Once we begin stocking Pattersons we’ll have no room for anything else. We may as well change the name of the shop to Patterson Books”.

Of course natty one-liners aren’t enough to sustain a whole book but fortunately there is a jolly romp of a mystery here too. The main case has dead bodies a-plenty, possible Nazis and even a car chase which is no less dramatic because it turns out to have been completely unnecessary. It is satisfactorily resolved with a modern twist on the traditional dénouement (one is forced to ponder what Hercule Poroit might have made of PowerPoint) and a humdinger of a cliff hanger.

Funny-ness is such a subjective thing. Loads of people told me that David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day would make me laugh ‘til I hurt but I abandoned the book at the half-way point without ever cracking a smile (and I grizzle to this day about having spent $22.95 on it). So I’m not going to tell you this book will make you laugh. All I’ll say is that it made me become the latest crazy giggling lady on my city’s public transport and I think you’d be daft not to at least sneak a peek at the first couple of short chapters in your local bookshop. If it is your kind of humour then there is lots of it and reading the book will make your day.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5

Publisher Headline [2009]; ISBN 9780755346745; Length 405 pages

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Mack Captures Crime has also reviewed Mystery Man

Will people think I’m crazy and do I care?

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Realising it is due to go back to the library in a couple of days, tonight I started The Mystery Man by Bateman (who seems to have lost his first name in the past couple of years).

And now I have a problem.

If I am to finish the book in time to return it by the due date I’ll have to read it while out of the house (on the bus, having my morning coffee, on my lunch break etc). But if I read it while I’m out of the house I might be in trouble.

The book is funny. Not “I’ve smiled a couple of times and chuckled once” funny or “my, isn’t that a wry observation I see before me” funny but “I’m only on page 27 and am already giggling like a granny who’s been at the liquor cabinet all day” funny.

It’s permissible to laugh like a drunken granny in the privacy of one’s own home but on the bus or at the coffee shop it’s a different story. People purse their lips, roll their eyes and practice their disapproving looks. Which I won’t mind because I’ll be laughing at the funny book.

But when I’ve finished the book and revert back to non-giggling commuting and coffee drinking regular passengers and fellow latte addicts will remember that I was the giggling crazy person. And they’ll still purse their lips, roll their eyes and practice their disapproving looks (which I assume they’ll get better and better at). And I’ll probably mind it a lot more when I’m not laughing at the funny book.

Who knew reading could be such a dangerous hobby?

Books of the Month – June 2010

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That Was Then

I only finished 11 books in June and formally consigned one to the DNF pile. It’s hard to pick my favourite book for the month as both

were terrific. Having read Theorin’s previous book I fully expected The Darkest Room to be excellent whereas I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Bauer’s debut. It’s always particularly exciting to find a great new author.

Honourable mentions for the month go to a couple of top quality police procedurals from opposite sides of the planet

It’s marvellous to see this sub-genre being so well represented by relatively new authors as some of my old favourites have kinda lost their shine of late.

New Additions

Of the 18 books that made their way into the house this month highlights include

  • Andrea Camilleri’s August Heat (I’ve already started this one, it’s the 5th of 6 books on the shortlist for the CWA International Dagger Award that I want to read before the winner is announced later this month)
  • Elly Griffiths’ The Janus Stone (which I received from my reading fairy godmother and will leave on the shelves for a while as I like to leave it a few months between books in a series and I’ve only read the first book in May)
  • Stuart Neville’s The Ghosts of Belfast (I’ve read a couple of reviews of this that made it sound very, very tempting)

What to Read Next?

In July you’re likely to be seeing reviews for

  • Linda Castillo’s Pray for Silence (I finished it on this morning’s walk to work in 2°C, I read the first of Castillo’s mysteries last year )
  • Deon Meyer’s Thirteen Hours (the last book on the CWA International Dagger shortlist which I need to read before the winner is announced later this month)
  • Adrian Hyland’s Gunshot Road (my copy has been despatched from the UK and I await its arrival eagerly, having thoroughly enjoyed Diamond Dove)
  • Mario Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes (thanks to a recommendation from Jose Ignacio at The Game’s Afoot I tracked this one down for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge as it’s set in Peru)
  • Mystery Man by (Colin) Bateman (the subtitle is murder, mayhem and damn sexy trousers and I have Mack of Mack Captures Crime to thank for this funny recommendation)
  • John Hart’s The Last Child (this one’s next up on my audio book playlist, it’s won a bunch of awards so hopefully I enjoy it – a book needs to be especially good to take my mind of chattering teeth these winter mornings)

Chart of the Month

I’ve felt too busy to read as much as I wanted to this month and this chart of how many pages my eyes have scanned and hours my ears have absorbed shows it’s true: June has been my second lowest month of the year for printed pages and the lowest for hours listened :(

What about you? What did you really enjoy in June? What are you looking forward to reading in July?