Download or read book Quite Ugly One Morning written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning first Parlabane thriller mixes paranoia and politics for “a lean, nasty, fun little page-turner” about a powerful Scottish scion’s murder (The New York Times). Investigative journalist Jack Parlabane has visited plenty of crime scenes, but whoever carved up Dr. Jeremy Ponsonby wanted to send a particularly revolting message. As jet-lagged, hungover, and nauseated as he may be, Parlabane knows this was no break-in gone wrong. Dr. Sarah Slaughter, anaesthetist and ex-wife of the victim, is beginning to believe it, too. Ponsonby had plenty of secrets, but the motivations for her ex-husband’s murder cut even deeper than they can imagine. Are Parlabane and Slaughter a match for the skullduggery? It depends on how much more of the black morals and full-color bloodshed of the Edinburgh medical society they can stomach in this “thrillingly unpleasant” winner of the First Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel of the Year (Esquire).
Download or read book Black Widow written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “hair-raising . . . devilishly complicated mystery” from the Scottish crime master. “Don’t even try to guess the outcome” (The New York Times Book Review). Diana Jager is clever, strong, and successful, a skilled surgeon and fierce campaigner via her blog about sexism in medicine. Yet it takes only hours for her life to crumble when her personal details are released on the internet as revenge for her writing. Then Diana meets Peter. He is kind, generous, and knows nothing about her past—the second chance she’s been waiting for. Within six months, they are married. Within six more, Peter is dead in a road accident, a nightmare end to their fairy-tale romance. But Peter’s sister doesn’t believe in fairy tales, and tasks rogue reporter Jack Parlabane with discovering the dark truth behind the woman the media is calling the Black Widow. Still on the mend from a turbulent divorce, Jack’s investigation into matters of the heart takes him to hidden places no one should ever have to go. Winner of the 2017 Theakson Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year “Brookmyre excels at melding the true chills of a psychological thriller with rollicking—if dark—humor. A witty and wild page-turner, Black Widow shines in showcasing this winning combination.” —The Boston Globe “Exceptionally good—a knotty mystery that’s . . . one of the most perceptive excavations of a dysfunctional marriage I can remember reading.” —The Guardian (UK) “A tense and provocative read.” —Entertainment Weekly
Download or read book Quite Early One Morning written by Dylan Thomas and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1954 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling collection of prose from one of the greatest poets and storytellers of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Bred in the Bone written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bred in the Bone is the stunning third novel in Brookmyre’s series featuring private investigator Jasmine Sharp and Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod. Set in the disturbing underworld of Glasgow—a place where countless old scores are still waiting to be settled, and where everyone knows everyone else—Bred in the Bone is a masterful mystery novel that will appeal to readers of Denise Mina, Val McDermid, and Ian Rankin. Private investigator Jasmine Sharp's father was murdered before she was born, and her mother went to self-sacrificing lengths in order to shield her from the world in which he moved. Since her mother's death, all she has been able to learn is his first name—and that only through a strange bond she has forged with the man who killed him: Glen Fallan. But when Fallan is arrested for the murder of a criminal her mother knew since childhood, Jasmine is finally forced to enter his domain: a place where violence is a way of life and vengeance spans generations. Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has one major Glaswegian gangster in the mortuary and another in the cells for killing him - which ought to be cause for celebration. Catherine is not smiling, however. From the moment she discovered a symbol daubed on the victim's head, she has understood that this case is far more dangerous than it appears on the surface, something that could threaten her family and end her career. As one battles her demons and the other chases her ghosts, these two very different detectives will ultimately confront the secrets that have entangled both of their fates since before Jasmine was even born.
Download or read book Ugly written by Robert Hoge and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beaut story about one very ugly kid. Robert Hoge was born with a tumour in the middle of his face, and legs that weren't much use. There wasn't another baby like him in the whole of Australia, let alone Brisbane. But the rest of his life wasn't so unusual: he had a mum and a dad, brothers and sisters, friends at school and in his street. He had childhood scrapes and days at the beach; fights with his family and trouble with his teachers. He had doctors, too: lots of doctors who, when he was still very young, removed that tumour from his face and operated on his legs, then stitched him back together. He still looked different, though. He still looked ... ugly. UGLY is the true story of how an extraordinary boy grew up to have an ordinary life, and how that became his greatest achievement of all.
Download or read book The Last Day of Christmas written by Chris Brookmyre and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Snowy London, a few days before Christmas, and a civil servant realises she has a chance for revenge. Kendra has spent her whole life struggling against the Etonian powers-that-be, so when she realises her boss is up to no good, she turns whistleblower, calling a journalist who is looking for a way to fight back himself. Jack Parlabane is a hack who will go to desperate lengths for a good story, and these days desperate is the word. Reduced to peddling PR puff pieces, Parlabane is delighted when Kendra's information threatens to blow up a national corruption case at the highest levels. But as he follows the threads and others get wind of his investigation, Parlabane realises this story might prove dangerous to both of them. This is one Christmas present Parlabane might regret opening. Suspense, conspiracy and Jack Parlabane - a journalist who doesn't know what's good for him - lie within this superb short story prequel to the forthcoming novel Dead Girl Walking.
Download or read book A Snowball In Hell written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third book in the Angelique De Xavier series, from author Christopher Brookmyre. If society has the B-list celebrities it deserves, it now has a killer to match. Except that Simon Darcourt is a great deal more successful in his career choice than the average talent show contestant. He's also got the media taped - by the simple expedient of by-passing them completely and posting real-time coverage of his killings on the internet. He's got viewing figures to make the world's TV executives gasp in envy, and he's pulling the voyeuristic strings of every viewer by getting them to 'vote' to keep his captives alive. Angelique De Xavier, his previous nemesis, is drafted onto the police team trying to bring this one-man celebrity hate-fest to an end. But she can't do it alone, she needs the magical skills of her lover, only she doesn't know where Zal is and meanwhile a whole load of celebs are, literarly, dying to be famous. An intelligent satire, a thriller with exhilarating pace - Christopher Brookmyre at his best.
Download or read book One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Pulp Fiction meets And Then There Were None” in this comic mystery set during a high school reunion off the coast of Scotland (Booklist). Gavin Hutchison has a plan to create a unique “floating holiday experience” on a converted North Sea oil rig. It’ll be a haven for tourists who want a vacation without the hassle of actually going anywhere. And what better way to test out his venture than to host a fifteen-year high school reunion, the biggest social event of his life? Believe it or not, the plan goes all wrong. Not only does no one remember Gavin, but his wife has discovered his philandering ways and plans to ditch him with a very public announcement in front of his assembled guests. That includes the uninvited ones, like a band of party-crashing mercenaries who are about to bring out the very worst in these very old friends. “Champagne bottles morph into defensive weapons” in prize-winning author Christopher Brookmyre’s comedy of betrayal, blackmail, revenge, and survival (Hartford Courant). “Furiously paced and wonderfully absurd, with more one-liners than a Colombian coke dealer.” —Maxim “Broad humor . . . and breakneck plotting.” —The New York Times Book Review
Download or read book Notional Identities written by Thomas Christie and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-07-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Notional Identities takes up the challenge of engaging with the popular genres of speculative fiction and crime fiction by Scottish authors from the mid-1970s until the beginning of the twenty-first century, examining a variety of significant novels from across the decades in the light of wider considerations of ideology, genre and national identity. The book investigates the extent to which the national political and cultural climate of this tumultuous era informed the narrative form and social commentary of such works, and considers the manner in which—and the extent to which—a specific and identifiably Scottish response to these ideological matters can be identified in popular prose fiction during the period under discussion. Although Scottish literary fiction of recent decades has been studied in considerable depth, Scottish popular genre literature has received markedly less critical scrutiny in comparison. Notional Identities aims to help in redressing this balance, examining popular Scottish texts of the stated period in order to reflect upon whether a significant relationship can be discerned between genre fiction and the mainstream of Scottish literary writing, and to consider the characteristics of the literary connections which exist between these different modes of writing.
Download or read book 100 British Crime Writers written by Esme Miskimmin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 100 British Crime Writers explores a history of British crime writing between 1855 and 2015 through 100 writers, detailing their lives and significant writing and exploring their contributions to the genre. Divided into four sections: 'The Victorians, Edwardians, and World War One, 1855-1918; 'The Golden Age and World War Two, 1919-1945; 'Post-War and Cold War, 1946-1989; and 'To the Millennium and Beyond, 1990-2015, each section offers an introduction to the significant features of these eras in crime fiction and discusses trends in publication, readership, and critical response. With entries spanning the earliest authors of crime fiction to a selection of innovative contemporary novelists, this book considers the development and progression of the genre in the light of historical and social events.
Download or read book The Place It Was Done written by Šárka Bubíková and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2023-02-17 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locations play an important role in every story, but in British and American contemporary crime fiction, they are often inextricable from the narrative. This work examines the city, the countryside and the wilderness as places ripe with literary significance and symbolism. Using works by authors like Robert Galbraith, Ian Rankin, Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, John Knox, Peter Robinson, Linda Barnes, Dana Stabenow, Nevada Barr, Les Roberts, Philip R. Craig, and others, this work offers a fresh assessment of how place and space are employed in contemporary crime fiction. Highlighted are similarities and differences among the authors' approaches to setting, and how they relate to the history of crime fiction and to the general literary representation of place. Going beyond mere literary geography, the book engages the sociocultural dimensions of the communities affected by crime. Chapters also analyze the reader's perception, recognition and appreciation of place and community.
Download or read book Tartan Noir written by Len Wanner and published by Cargo Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and fascinating guide to the worldwide crime fiction phenomenon known as Tartan Noir covering all its major authors. What is Tartan Noir? Which authors belong to this global crime fiction phenomenon? Which books should you read first, next, again, or not at all? And what are the many historical, political, and cultural influences that have woven themselves into the Tartan Noir success story? Here, Len Wanner investigates the literature's four main sub-genres - the detective, the police, the serial killer, and the noir novel. Covering four decades' worth of literary history, Wanner offers not only four in-depth cross-examinations but also close readings of another 40 novels - everything from commercial hits and critical triumphs to curiosity pieces and cult classi. Books critiqued include international bestsellers by the likes of Ian Rankin, William McIlvanney, Val McDermid, and Denise Mina, alongside lesser known gems by counter-cultural icons such as Hugh C. Rae, Ray Banks, Allan Guthrie, Helen FitzGerald, and many more.
Download or read book Be My Enemy written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth book in the Jack Parlabane series, from author Christopher Brookmyre. It was a junket, a freebie. A 'team-building' weekend in the highlands for lawyers, advertising execs, businessmen, even the head of a charity. Oh, and a journalist, specially solicited for his renowned and voluble scepticism - Jack Parlabane. Amid the flying paintballs and flowing Shiraz even the most cynical admit the organisers have pulled some surprises - stalkers in the forest, power cuts in the night, mass mobile phone thefts, disappearing staff, disappearing guests: there's nothing can bring out people's hidden strengths or break down inter-personal barriers quite like not having a clue what's going on and being scared out of your wits. However, when the only vehicular access for thirty miles is cut off it seems that events are being orchestrated not just for pleasure ... And that's before they find the first body. Thereafter, 'finding out who your colleagues really are' is not so much an end product as the key to reaching Monday morning alive.
Download or read book Boiling A Frog written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Abacus. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third book in the Jack Parlabane series, from author Christopher Brookmyre. Jack Parlabane, the investigative journalist who is not averse to breaking the law for the sake of a good story, has finally been caught on the petard of his own self-confidence and is experiencing accommodation courtesy of Her Majesty. The fledgling Scottish parliament is in catatonic shock after experiencing its first dose of Westminster sleaze. The Catholic Church of Scotland is taking full advantage of the politicians' discomfort and is riding high in the polls as the voice of morality. Behind the scenes the truth is obscured by the machinations of the spin doctors and in prison, aware he's missing out on a great story, Parlabane discovers that contacts and a pretty way with words are no defence against people he has helped to put away. Part political satire, part cliff-hanging thriller this is high calibre entertainment.
Download or read book Want You Gone written by Chris Brookmyre and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2017-04-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighth book in the Jack Parlabane series, from author Christopher Brookmyre. The award-winning, million-selling author of Black Widow brings a twist-filled story of secrets and lies. What if your deepest secret was revealed? Sam Morpeth is growing up way too fast, left to fend for a younger sister when their mother goes to prison and watching her dreams of university evaporate. But Sam learns what it is to be truly powerless when a stranger begins to blackmail her. Who would you turn to? Meanwhile, reporter Jack Parlabane has finally got his career back on track, but his success has left him indebted to a volatile, criminal source. Now that debt is being called in, and it could cost him everything. What would you be capable of? Thrown together by a vindictive and mysterious mutual enemy, Sam and Jack are about to discover they might be each other's only hope.
Download or read book Dead Girl Walking written by Chris Brookmyre and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2015-01-22 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sixth book in the Jack Parlabane series, from author Christopher Brookmyre. Life is dangerous when you have everything to lose. Famous, beautiful and talented, Heike Gunn has the world at her feet. Then, one day, she simply vanishes. Jack Parlabane has lost everything: his journalism career, his marriage, his self-respect. A call for help from an old friend offers a chance for redemption - but only if he can find out what happened to Heike. Pursued by those who would punish him for past crimes, Parlabane enters the world of Heike's band, Savage Earth Heart, a group at breaking point. Each of its members seems to be hiding something, not least its newest recruit Monica Halcrow, whose possible relationship with Heike has become a public obsession. Monica's own story, however, reveals a far darker truth. Fixated on Heike from day one, she has been engulfed by paranoia, jealousy and fear, as she discovers the hidden price of fame. From Berlin to Barcelona, from the streets of Milan to remote Scottish islands, Parlabane must find out what happened before it's too late, all while the walls are closing in on him...
Download or read book Not the End of the World written by Christopher Brookmyre and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death threats rock a Hollywood film festival in a thriller that reads like “Day of the Locust updated and rewritten by Carl Hiaasen” (Kirkus Reviews). After a family tragedy, LAPD cop Larry Freeman gets back to work with what he thinks is a simple assignment: Keep a rabid group of right-wing evangelical protestors as far as possible from a celluloid celebration of ex—and very X—adult film actors. But when a vessel is discovered off the West Coast with its crew vanished, Freeman finds himself caught in a far more twisted and dangerous game than he imagined. The players include the voluptuous daughter of a conservative US senator, a Glaswegian photographer with a mysterious agenda, a yacht-load of Hollywood producers, a throng of faded porn stars feeling more exposed than ever, and a band of self-righteous extremists bent on a glittering apocalypse. Set on the near side of the millennium, at a point when the world is about to spin out of control, this witty thriller delivers “a crazy off-the-wall roller coaster of a book that throws in not only the kitchen sink but the dresser, the best china, and the cook herself” (The Irish Times). “A wild, no-punches-pulled ride.” —Philadelphia Weekly
