A Son of the Rock

Or: Fuck This For A Game Of Soldiers. Orbit, 2005, 391p.

Being the continuing adventures of Jack Parlabane, investigative journalist and gobshite.

After The Road To Berlin I needed some light relief. Brookmyre’€™s comedic touch is still here though less so than in others of his I have read. The plot – as in most Brookmyre novels – doesn’t really bear much scrutiny being merely an excuse to let the mayhem begin. Parlabane is sent by his newspaper to review the experience provided by a new provider of those team bonding outward bound courses. The paintball sessions soon grow more sinister and the participants discover what has brought them all there.

File under: diverting entertainment.

Sadly there were two “shoe-in‘€s plus two examples of that mishearing, “off his own back.” (My dictionary gives it as “€œoff his own bat”. Maybe Brookmyre never played cricket at school.)

I did also notice an, “€œAin’€™t I?”€ Was this perhaps Brookmyre’s way of avoiding that grammatical idiocy, “€œAren’€™t I?”€