CotB follows on quite tightly from Christopher Brookmyre’s first novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, picking up a short time later in ‘hero’ Jack Parlabane’s life. We find him here engaged, blissfully in love, and having agreed to give up the more dangerous and illegal practises of being an investigative journalist.

The story surrounds the death of a powerful media tycoon, Roland Voss, who is found slaughtered in a Scottish stately home along with his wife and bodyguards. The culprits seem obvious: the burglars caught fleeing the scene covered in blood. But if it’s that obvious, why did one of the men pay a visit to his lawyer a few days beforehand, and what are the secret contents of the envelope he left with her – something that seems to be worth killing for?

What follows is a break-neck plot following the few days post-murder in the lives of the accused, the lawyer (Nicola Carrow), and of course our Jack.

What’s good: the humour, blackest of the black as it is.

What’s not: a very similar ‘formula’ to Brookmyre’s previous novel (QUOM), where the bad guys are revealed in chapter two so we can follow both sides of the story. Alas, the villian(s) are rather pantomime, and very samey to those in the previous book. One mega-arrogant, ivory-towered upper class twit with absolutely no redeeming features; only difference is changing medical politics for the ‘real’ kind.

I also have issues with what came across as Brookmyre’s own arrogance in this novel. Parlabane is never reintroduced, but rather there’s a kind of knowing nod’n’wink that you (the reader) and he (the author) are sharing some kind of in-joke by way of the previous novel. Worse, buoyed by the success of QUOM (I imagine), Brookmyre more than occassionally gives in to long rambling paragraphs filled with flowery prose and big words – adding nothing to the story, but coming across majorly as showing off.

That said (!) this is a fun read. It can’t really be a thriller when so much is spelled out so early, but it’s still entertaining to follow the twists back to the ‘why’ and the end result. Weaknesses aside, I’m looking forward to my next meeting with Jack Parlabane.