While on the whole I liked this book, there were plenty of times while reading it when I felt that things weren’t gelling right. Plot elements – crucial ones – were introduced too late or in a slipshod way. The story felt haphazard and sometimes stumbled over itself. We spent perhaps too much time getting to know about the main character Cameron’s (a slacker Scottish newspaper writer) penchant for speed and video games than we did moving ahead with the meat of the story.

But as a horror novel, Complicity does, in the end, come through. Its underlying theme of helplessness in the face of utter human greed and immorality, and how to respond to that effectively, plus the grotesque but imaginative murder scenes, drew me in and made me at least a little sympathetic toward the killer when the identity is revealed midway through. And the ending is oddly satisfying, if full of question marks.

Cameron Colley is a journalist based in Edinburgh. working for “The Caledonian”. He has an eye for trouble, and enjoys using his articles to take pot-shots at the ‘establishment’ and big business. His past-times include alcohol, drugs and a computer game called “Despot” – one which sounds very similar to Civ II. Cameron’s social circle seems quite small – there’s William and Yvonne, a couple he met at university. The pair are married, though Cameron has no qualms about enjoying Yvonne (in as kinky a manner as possible) on a very regular basis. There’s also Andy, who Cameron has known pretty much all his life. Andy has ‘achievment’ written all over his past – he was an officer in the Falklands War and was subsequently awarded the DSO. On leaving the army, he went into advertising – where he came up with the BIG campaigns for several global companies. After that, he then opened a chain of very successful shops, became obscenely rich…and then, strangely, dropped out. Andy is now living in a dilapidated old hotel (his own, naturally) in the Highlands – doing little other than drink and drugs, apparently…

Workwise, Cameron is quite possibly on the verge on something big : he has a mole feeding – “Mr Archer” – feeding him about five high-profile deaths within the nuclear and security services. All five victims died within two years of each other and, although all were officially written off as suicides, there have been rumours of something murky about the deaths. Cameron isn’t the first to have looked into the story -however, he’s hoping Archer’s information will lead him somewhere. (If what’s he’s been told is true, it’s quite possible it could lead to to Iraq). Unfortunately, while Cameron’s working on his mole-inspired story, another set of very high-profile individuals are finding themselves being assaulted and / or murdered. The problem, as it turns out, is that all the victims have been lambasted in one of Cameron’s articles.

“Complicity” is definitely a book I’d recommend – which is hardly a surprise, given that it’s been written by Iain Banks. Banks has a certain way of telling a story I enjoy – the occasional jump back and forward, and the hint of looking at something from a slightly different angle. Most of the book is told by Cameron (“I drive the car up the little single track road leading towards the low hills”), part of the book is also told about the killer. Although it does mean we know who’s getting killed and how they’re dying, practically nothing is given away about the killers identity. It’s even (deliberately) vague about the killer’s gender – for example, “you get to the bedside and raise the log over your head”. Excellent stuff.

Brutal and fascinating, like Banks’s other novels. (11/28/04)