Review: Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre: A welcome return

The book has since become one of the cornerstones of what came to be known as Tartan Noir. Gruesome but acerbically funny, with barbed social commentary an essential part of the package, it set out its stall in the opening pages, confronting readers with a mutilated corpse surrounded by blood, vomit and other bodily excretions. Its hero, journalist Jack Parlabane, was already such a hardened crime scene veteran that he barely flinched at the sight.

In his debut, we were told no more about Parlabane than we needed to know. Early thirties, about 5’7” but possibly shorter, a shock of blonde hair falling over his forehead, dressed in jeans, a black polo neck and a biker jacket. A crime reporter originally from Glasgow, his talent for sniffing out high-level corruption precipitated hurried exits from both London and LA before his recent arrival in Edinburgh. We find out he’s a man who can handle himself, a journalist who isn’t above using his mad climbing skills for breaking and entering when he can’t get answers by ethical means. Partly inspired by Ford Prefect from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide books, he has a talent for stumbling into a situation and making it worse.

Quite Ugly One Evening (Image: Abacus)

Beyond those bare facts were gaps the author would fill in later. There have been seven Parlabane novels since then, though none since 2017. Brookmyre has still been highly prolific otherwise, with such books as The Cracked Mirror, in which an LAPD homicide cop joins forces with a Marple-esque sleuth, the science fiction novel Places in the Darkness and five books co-written with his wife, Marisa Haetzman, under the name Ambrose Parry.

With the deliberate echo of Parlabane’s debut in its title, 30th anniversary book Quite Ugly One Evening can’t help but invite comparisons with its predecessor. Coming straight off a read of the original – with its era-defining references to faxing, Linn hi-fis and Shavers Weekly, all wrapped up with a prison rape joke – the first thing to notice is that Parlabane is speaking to us in the first person these days. He’s not the enigmatic stranger he was in 1996, so telling the stories from his own perspective (as Brookmyre has since 2015’s Dead Girl Walking) must have seemed a natural progression.

We find Parlabane in his early sixties, his blonde mop now mostly grey, working for a “cross-media entity” called Broadwave, and not happily. He might have entertained thoughts about being a mentor to the young staff when he joined, but “When your idea of journalism is linking to viral videos and regurgitating social media commentary, applying shoe leather to concrete and cautiously cultivating contacts must seem like some ancient redundant practice akin to hand-weaving your own clothes.”

Yes, if Quite Ugly One Morning was an angry book, its successor is downright furious. The villain of the former was a rapacious Tory capitalist who wangled his way into the post of Chief Executive of the Midlothian NHS Trust so he could profit from the carve-up of the NHS. Thirty years on, the targets for Brookmyre’s satirical rage have multiplied exponentially.

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Parlabane is particularly incensed by the domination of public discourse by right-wing grifters spouting opinions they don’t necessarily believe in to get attention. Attempting a sting on one of them for Broadwave, he is rumbled by the head of a right-wing lobbying firm, giving him the opportunity to vent about the power such organisations have to shape the news agenda. An ex-spy later complains to him about Russian infiltrators “turning London into their laundromat” and bringing about Brexit.

The novel’s topicality also embraces the insatiable nostalgia of Gen X and boomers for the cultural artefacts of their childhoods. One of the hot-button topics of the day is The Imaginators, a Gerry Anderson-style Marionette show from the 1960s. Uncontroversial at the time, its racist and sexist stereotypes are fuelling the culture war, with even the Maskyn family, the children and grandchildren of the show’s creators, at odds with each other over what values a rebooted Imaginators should uphold.

Parlabane is approached by spymaster Genevieve Glass, who tells him about Simeon Wickham, a spook murdered 40 years earlier while investigating rumours of Russian infiltration of the Maskyn family. New information has made the Maskyns persons of interest again, and they will all be on an ocean liner for a week-long fan convention marking The Imaginators’ 60th anniversary. Sensing immediately that he’s being led into a trap, Parlabane nevertheless convinces himself that knowing it’s a trap will somehow protect him.

'As much as Brookmyre claims to have toned down the humour since his early books, no one seems to have told Parlabane, whose inner monologue continues in an ironic and blackly comic vein' (Image: Newsquest)

Once on board under a false name, he tries to get close to the Maskyns and finds a screwed-up rich family bitterly divided along political lines engaged in a Succession-style power struggle. There’s also a Russian oligarch on board who definitely hasn’t come along to celebrate a 1960s kid's show. The ship becomes a frontline of the culture war, with the fanbase’s MAGA element objecting angrily to planned “revisions” to the show’s mythology and vulgar billionaire Leo Spear helicoptering in to ratchet the tension up as high as he can.

Some might be disappointed by the modest body count, and the large cast makes it hard to keep track of who’s who and where their allegiances lie. It’s plot-heavy and some stretches can feel a little drawn-out, but once the pace picks up Brookmyre shows that he’s lost none of his flair for a twisty thriller with plenty of intrigue, sweaty-palmed peril and a heart-stopping stunt that tests Parlabane’s climbing skills to their limit. And as much as Brookmyre claims to have toned down the humour since his early books, no one seems to have told Parlabane, whose inner monologue continues in an ironic and blackly comic vein.

What’s more, he’s processing the death of his mother, and is starting to question the life he’s leading. Could this be the end for Parlabane? Are the matching titles intended to act as bookends for this popular series? Let’s hope not. As a journalist, amateur detective and daredevil, he has admirable pluck and a dry wit, and his tendency to give in to his impulsive nature gives the books a dangerous edge we’d miss.