Country Of The Blind (Jack Parlabane, #2) by Christopher Brookmyre

Country Of The Blind (Jack Parlabane, #2) Reviews

• 
  anne

  Let's face it, i really want to marry Christopher Brookmyre and have his sarcastic babies.
• 
  Pat

  OK I'm going to go out on a limb here and give this five bloody brilliant stars! I'll admit its maybe not for everyone. If you can't handle Scottish vernacular or off the wall humour it may not be for you (I did laugh out loud quite a lot during the reading). That's not to say its a comedy or even a light story. Oh no, its deadly serious but Christopher Brookmyre has a turn of phrase that just appeals to me. It might be a Scottish thing because I also find a lot of humour in Stuart MacBride's books and heaven knows some of them are quite gruesome. The Scots are very good at insults!
  
  This is the second Jack Parlabane story and Brookmyre has really hit his straps with it. Parlabane is a freelance journalist with a nose for a scorching story and the balls to go all out after it risking life and limb. I can't begin to describe the plot, its quite complicated but we have blackmail, murder, setting people up as scapegoats, more murder, cover-ups, corruption and more murder. Its a conspiracy theorist's wet dream and I just loved it!
• 
  Brenda

  Really enjoyed this Scottish political David-and-Goliath adventure with lots of humor and great characters. I’ll definitely be reading the next book.
• 
  Rae

  Brookmyre is a great story teller, but can be a little long-winded. This is the second Parlabane novel and there's the usual blend of action and satire.
  
  These books are at the awkward stage where they are old enough to feel outdated, but not yet old enough to be delightfully vintage and reminiscent of a lost time.
  
  Entertaining and satisfying enough, but also eyerollingly silly and a bit 90s.
• 
  Eve Kay

  Argh, that annoying "gotta-read-this-second-book-so-can-read-on-the-series" -dilemma.
  The book takes ages to get going, Parlabane appears way too late, I'm already bored when he appears and it's too late to save it.
  
  The story wasn't even funny like the first one was and many of the chapters had the same exact pattern:
  The wind is blowing from the east -type of description
  followed by person A doing something he does every day which he hates for reasons XYZ
  followed by a trip down memory lane: how things used to be and what happened that lead person A to that doing of something that was disrupted by all the reminiscing
  + end chapter on a sudden cliffhanger.
  
  Next chapter:
  The sun is shining -type of description followed by person B doing something she does every day which she hates...
  
  Spammy was great, I like Sarah - there was wayyy too little of her - and Parlabane was more like a sidekick, I mean...no!
• 
  Dipanjan

  Country Of The Blind continues to be "Quite The Fantastic An Experience". Mr. Brookmyre is wearing his politics all over himself in this book. Jack Parlabane - Oh Jack, what do I say about you? What are you? Are you God? Are you human? Or are you just an experience that gets inside my head and takes up residence? EXPLOSIVE is probably the only word that can define Jack Parlabane. Every thing you do is magic!! Period!!!
  
  As someone has said already "If you fail to read Brookmyre before you die, you haven't lived". And "if you haven't met Jack Parlabane yet, you haven't been born yet". Like the first book in the series (Quite Ugly One Morning), Country Of The Blind leaves a lingering taste that is rich and exotic. Apart from the explosive Parlabane, EACH and EVERY character of this book is sketched to perfection. However, there is a distinct difference in the structure of this book. In Quite Ugly One Morning, the entire plot was led by Parlabane. In Country Of The Blind, Parlabane shares the space with ALL the players in the game. In fact, the pages dedicated to Parlabane are so less (in comparison) that it leaves you panting and drooling to get more of Parlabane.
  
  Parlabane continues to be clutter breaking in his all brains, all intelligence, all tracker of truth. But in addition to this book, he is in a relationship as well, which is just as hilarious, raunchy with lip smacking attitude and yet so very endearing. Parlabane continues to throws all alarm bells screaming danger and YET we are still getting drawn towards him.
  
  You simply CANNOT miss this series. But remember, the moment you pick up this book you are shoved into a Parlabane situation. And when your world turns into a Parlabane Situation, you can do NOTHING except fasten your seat belts and hope to come out sane on the other side.
  
  Boy oh Boy - I am suffering from PJPED (Post Jack Parlabane Ecstaticy Disorder).
  
• 
  Rachel

  Jack Parlabane is back! What initially looked like a one-shot story (Quite Ugly One Morning) has turned into an excellent series -- the second book is much more serious, in-depth, and interesting, while still being totally wacky and wild, in true Brookmyre style. In this one, a bizarre killing becomes personal as one of Jack's friends appears on TV as a suspect long enough to look terrified and give Jack a private message, before dying of apparent suicide. As Jack digs into the case, he begins to uncover a conspiracy of frightening proportions, that points to some of the top politicians in the country. Which, of course, only makes him happy.
  
  The thing I loved about this book was the characters' enthusiasm for doing totally insane things. They feel like real people -- brilliant one moment, and then completely forgetting to do something critical the next. It's that weird mixture of competence and stupidity (something like "I just pulled off the crime of the century! Whoops, where did I leave the keys to the getaway car?") that just feels totally authentic and familiar.
  
  And Spammy may be my favorite character *ever*.
• 
  Algernon (Darth Anyan)

  Great read, attacking disturbingly contemporary issues in the world of politics, media industry and finance. The second Jack Parlabane high octane thriller set in his native Scotland has his sharp wit signature, but I found it leaning more toward the scary than the humorous. Why? Because it reminded me very much of another series I'm reading now: Transmetropolitan. Parlabane and Spider Robinson are cast from the same mold, foulmouthed, irreverent towards the law or authorithy, angry at injustice and caring for the small people. The scary part comes from the fact that the setting of Country of the Blind is in our reality, not in some dystopian metropolis of the future.
  
  The story starts with the murder of the most famous British newspaper owner, apparently by a group of small time crooks. Roland Voss may be an imaginary character, but it is very easy to compare events from the book with recent revelations in the British press about a media magnate who has the politicians and the police in his pocket.
  
  If I were to grumble a bit about the book, I would say Brookmyre gets carried away by his anti-establishment rants and they hurt a little the pacing of the book. Also, the humor is great, but it is often parochial and I felt the need to check on Wikipedia some obscure reference to local politicians or pop culture icons, not to mention football players or Scottish jargon.
• 
  Mollie

  This book is incredibly... satisfying. I think satisfying is the word I am looking for. Every witticism and reference has you nodding along thinking "yeah! 'Bout time someone pointed that out" or "Damn, I love that song" or just thinking, "I wish I had the nerve and talent to write this kind of thing".
  I found this book took a little longer to get into at first - possibly because I was expecting the avalanche of hate and spite that comes from Simon Darcourt at the beginning of "A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away". However, the pace picks up and it becomes incredibly bloodthirsty which is what made this book quite so satisfying, particularly after Rupert Murdoch and everything else that has been going on. And who doesn't like a book that rips the Tory Party to pieces?
  The characters seemed very realistic to me, and it was perhaps a little unnerving when you find yourself relating to Spammy the stoner...
  This is the first of the Jack Parlabane novels that I have read, can't wait to get into the others.
• 
  Karen

  Bit spoiled for audio choice at the moment, having decided to really concentrate on back to favourite series. This is the second Jack Parlabane book from Scottish writer, and world class pointer out of the idiocy of some aspects of life, Christopher Brookmyre (I was particularly pleased to find Gordon Duncan also reading / listening to this as it is another of my all time favourite Brookmyre books).
  
  Gordon's advice re listening to the opening chapter of this book in the car came a little late alas, and there were a few moments when I did think if I was going to die, I hoped the people extracting me from the car had a similar sense of humour.
  
  All of Brookmyre's books work well in text format, but there's something extra about the audio - the precise reading out of some of the funniest (okay and crudest) lines you're going to hear for quite a while. Perhaps not with your gran in the car is the only other warning I'd add.
• 
  Henry Fosdike

  For whatever reason, this took an absolute age to get going and when Parlabane showed up, it still didn't fully click into gear. The plot sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is with Brookmyre far more interested in living through his characters and ranting about the state of politics in the UK at the time (still applicable..?)
  
  After the fourth or fifth chapter in succession where we start in the present then go into a political rant which segues into an entire character's backstory, it all gets a little too similar with the same vulgar jokes and casual humour used for the various folks involved. It was still entertaining but there was a definite pattern at play here and Country for the Blind wasn't quite as tight as its predecessor.
• 
  Christine

  Another Christopher Brookmyre story told with humour, but frightening in its possibilities. Jack Parlabane, maverick journalist willing to break all the rules to get the story, is a great character and the rest of the protagonists are fully developed and very credible. There is more time taken on the back stories and explanations than the first book in the series, but still exciting and fun to read.
• 
  Jamie Collins

  This second book featuring the conspiracy-cracking Scottish journalist Jack Parlabane was even better than the first one. This time around we have smug, evil politicians and their incompetent henchmen pitted against the meek yet resourceful underdog. The story is suspenseful, and there are some wonderful characterizations.
  
  There is plenty of humor and a lot of Scottish dialect (maybe enough to annoy some people, but I enjoyed it). It has none of the gross-out descriptions of the first book, which was just fine with me. It is a bit dated, with a lot of references to British politics in the 90's.
  
• 
  Karen

  Ah, it's that difficult second book: your publisher's champing at the bit, you've not quite got your next story together, you're sick to the back teeth of your leading character and need some time away from him...
  
  
  
  So Jack takes absolutely ages to appear and Nicole, the lawyer, is a very poor substitute, despite the care taken in the opening chapter to construct her back story. You've got to love Spammy though. I hope he reappears at a later date.
  
  
  
  Good, but not brilliant.
• 
  Sorcha

  Anything by this guy that I've read so far has been great, and this was no exception.
• 
  Chip

  Another entertaining read. 3.5 stars - the one knock I'd say I had on it was that all of the villains were somewhat excessively and obviously villainous - caricatures, really.
• 
  Teresa Widdowson

  DNF. Plodding, rambling political diatribe.
• 
  Eva

  Ο Jack Parlabane είναι ο άνθρωπος που μάλλον δεν θα θέλαμε να είμαστε αλλά να έχουμε όλοι φίλο. Πιο αστείο, πιο πολιτικό, πιο καυστικό από το ντεμπούτο του, το δεύτερο μυθιστόρημα του Brookmyre γράφτηκε το 1997 αλλά υπάρχουν ολόκληρα κεφάλαια τα οποία μιλάνε για το σήμερα. Χαρακτήρες, backstories, και πλοκή που εκτυλίσσεται σε κάτι λιγότερο από πέντε μέρες καταπιάνεται με ένα σωρό ζητήματα και τα καταφέρνει περίφημα ενώ ταυτόχρονα σε διασκεδάζει. Με διεισδυτική και διορατική ματιά σφάζει, άλλους με το βαμβάκι, άλλους όχι και τόσο. Το πόσο μου άρεσε σίγουρα βασίζεται και στην πολιτική μου συμφωνία, αλλά δεν αφήνει κανένα αλώβητο στην κριτική του, κι αυτό είναι η επιτυχία του.
  Θα το πρότεινα ανεπιφύλακτα αλλά όχι σε όλους.
  
  on a sidenote, διάβαζα στις 21 του μήνα το κεφάλαιο που ο αρχισυντάκτης της εφημερίδας με την οποία σ��νεργάζεται ο Parlabane σκέφτεται το μέλλον της έντυπης δημοσιογραφίας, τον ανταγωνισμό με τα νέα μέσα (κυρίως την άμεση κάλυψη των γεγονότων από την τηλεόραση την εποχή στην οποία αναφέρεται), το κοινό που σε αυτή τη νέα κατάσταση θρέφεται με sensetionalism και όχι με ουσία και πως η σοβαρή και ερευνητική δημοσιογραφία μπορεί να επιβιώσει σε αυτή την κατάσταση, όχι μόνο οικονομικά αλλά και ως λειτούργημα. Δυο μέρες αργότερα, μετά τα γεγονότα στο Westminster κι αφού δεν είχα δει λεπτό τηλεοπτικής κάλυψης, αναζήτησα με μεγάλη προσοχή το άρθρο το οποίο θα διαβάσω για να ενημερωθώ. Ίσως τελικά αχνοφαίνεται ελπίδα.
• 
  Rumfuddle

  Reading this made 1998 feel far more than 22 years ago such has the world moved on.
  
  Despite the usual Scottish left wing drivel, (its now amusing how the demonised Tory leadership in this book who are portrayed as eating babies for breakfast, all seem much less evil now they are making tv programs about trains whilst wearing lurid pink trousers.
  
  In Summary, 1990's politics, evil Tories, bad soldiers, good Scottish hack, English Bad, Jocks good.
  
  I did enjoy it though.
• 
  Pippa

  ‘Build ‘em up then knock ‘em down.’
  
  The copy of this book that I read has a quote from the Independent's review splashed across the cover: "Tartan noir." It's a fantastic description for a fantastic book in what is proving to be a fantastic series.
  
  She was witnessing the bizarre Parlabane thought-process in full, insane, runaway-train-with-a-madman-at-the-controls tilt.
  
  Christopher gives us a more mature follow-up to Quite Ugly One Morning, with an entirely different kind of story and a whole new cast of supporting characters. But it's got everything that are quickly proving to define this series: the morally grey and deliciously developed Jack Parlabane, his just as well-handled partner Sarah Slaughter and police contact Jenny Dalziel (who is a well-portrayed lesbian character conceived in the 1990s - miracles happen), new characters that hook you in emotionally, and an excellently-webbed plot that's laced with clever socio-political satire.
  
  He keeps up his structure of giving the reader the who quite early on, and spending the rest of the novel with Jack Parlabane and the rest of the novel's cast as they unravel the why and how. This remains a hugely effective structure. The suspense and fear are only heightened for the omniscient reader by being inside the antagonists' head and knowing, not guessing, what they are capable of. It's Hitchcock's rules of suspense at work, and it is stunning.
  
  Ordinary people get murdered. Poor people get murdered. Black people get murdered. Women get murdered. We don’t get murdered.
  
  The one thing is the pacing - mostly at the beginning. Brookmyre's done away with the potty humour dependence in this one, but it seems that in the first book, the poop jokes may have distracted from some pretty slow going. Things pick up and get very engaging after the first third or so, so try to be patient, but we do learn a lot of backstory that never proves to be particularly relevant. Perhaps Brookmyre keeps the characters in question on in later books, but for now it feels like he's risking sacrificing quite a few readers to spend a lot of time establishing things for no particular reason.
  
  Regardless, this is overall just another example of Christopher Brookmyre's skill as a writer of a crime thriller that is rich in Scottish flavour and gives equal priority to character, relationships, and plot. This is another feast, leaving the reader both full and hungry for the next one.
  
  ‘You’re somewhere over the rainbow and the bad news is the munchkins aren’t fucking friendly.’
  
  Just, er, nota bene: don't give this one to your Conservative friend.
• 
  VeganReet

  4.5 stars
  First thing off the bat, in this book, this elite named Roland Voss is murdered. I want to say he's a Rupert Murdoch look alike. Reporting the news,
  "Eventually, out of facts and out of quotes, they moved on to reaction, which in most cases was blank disbelief....
  ordinary people got murdered. Poor people got murdered. Black people got murdered. Women got murdered. We don't get murdered.
  Occasionally one of us manages to off himself by mistake with the wife's knickers over his head or gets found upside down in a septic tank after a share crash, but we don't get done in by the unwashed when we're trying to enjoy a spot of hunting and fishing in the countryside. We're safe from that sort of thing.
  Aren't we?"
  After I read this, I knew I was going to love this book. This is the second one I've read from this author, but it's been 8 years since I read the first one.
  
  Tam McInnis, his son Paul, Tam's friend Robert, and Paul's friend Spammy, have been set up to take the fall for the murder of Voss. Tam McInnes had giving Nicole an envelope, before the Voss murder, telling her to hold on to it, and to open it if he did not come back after the weekend.
  Nicole's boss Mr Campbell tells her the background behind Tam McInnis:
  " 'he was a burglar. Not by profession, just by, well, a combination of circumstance, naivety and probably a bit of booze, in the first instance. He and his Pals robbed country mansions; you know that much. The first one was the home - a home - of the man who took the decision to close down the car plant where they had all worked, because labor was cheaper in the Third World. They had intended the robbery as a protest, a stunt, if you like; said they were originally planning to give the gear back. However... To cut a long story short, when it became apparent that nobody had a bloody clue who had done it, they decided to keep their mouths shut and ended up doing it again someplace else. The spree lasted a few months; they hit I think seven, maybe eight places. But the thing is, they mostly hit places when they were empty; and if someone was going to be home, they made sure they were in and out without a soul knowing. Do you see what I'm saying?'
  She nodded and smiled, feeling a welcome moment of comfort as some aspect of solidity of reassurance returned.
  'they never hurt anyone,' she said.
  They were dubbed "Robin's Hoods."
  
  The prime minister to Scotland does not feel any loyalty to Scotland. Though his father is Scottish, his mother is English. For the PR value of it, he goes to a football (soccer) game, but he's embarrassed in it, and the press has a field day with it.
  When the announcers say that he is in the crowd, the crowd starts booing, and a concerted chanting begins:
  " 'durty English bastard. Durty English bastard.'
  'Ally Dalgleish, you're a wanker, you're a wanker - Ally Dalgleish, you're a donkey's arse.'
  But the nightmare didn't end there. It turned out some malignant and no doubt pinko director at the BBC had chosen to zoom in on his face during the pre-match playing of the national anthem, and of course after the first roll on the drums he had launched full-throated into 'God save our gra... ' before stopping as he realized that everyone else was singing 'oh flower of Scotland'. To compound the gaffe; he didn't know any of the words to the stupid bloody dirge, and the cameras had returned a couple of times to show him closed-mouth and blushing as those all around him strove to burst a lung. "
  This crooked politician is involved in the murder of Voss up to his eyeballs.
  
  It all goes back to the start of sending off all the jobs from the First World to the Third World. Margaret Thatcher was a huge proponent of this, but our own crooked politicians had their hands in it up to their shoulders.
  "We have to wreck the unions. We have to slash jobs. We have to worry less about health and safety, because it eats into profit. We have to decimate wages, because we're in a global labor market now, and that means we're competing with the Third World.
  ......
  Of course it was all fucking stitch-up. What had later been discovered by this investigative hack was that the government instigated the whole thing. They had very quietly decided to pull the plug on the subsidies, and tipped the wink to the americans, assuring them that there would be no public blame, and then there was no potential for damage to 'the special relationship.' [of English capitalists to American capitalists?]
  Why?
  Christ, why not?
  The government had nothing to lose. The money that would have gone into subsidizing Meiklewood [car factory where Tam McInnes and his chum Robert worked] could be spent on something useful instead, like nuclear submarines, or tax cuts. And the loss of a few thousand jobs wasn't a drawback, it was a bonus. Mass unemployment wasn't a government failure, it was a government strategy - as everyone well knew. It was the weapon they used to break unions, force down wages, dictate conditions. But it was more sophisticated than that. It wasn't merely a question of finding any three or four million people to haunt the thoughts and weaken the resolve of every disgruntled employee. It was a specific three or four million people, Tam knew.
  It was three or four million people like him.
  They hadn't been out just to break their strength - they had been out to break their spirit. To do is to be; the Tories took away what they did. They took away what they were, took away what their fathers had been, took away their past and their legacy, and left them not just without means, but without purpose. And a man without purpose offers Little Resistance as a foe. He has nothing to fight for, and no comrades in arms.
  Steel. Call. Ships. Cars.
  They closed whole industries.
  Scotland had to change, the Tories insisted. It's days of heavy industry were gone, and it's future, as envisaged by Thatcher, was as a 'service economy'. Tam would have found the idea hilarious if the reality hadn't been so fucking painful."
  And all of that leads us to where we are now. Fucked. Gawd I love this author.
  
  It takes a few dozen pages to get used to the Scottish dialect that the author writes conversations between his characters in. Here's a sample, when the three remaining Robbin Hoods are confronted by two of the men working for Dalgleish on the framing of them. He calls Spammy SKinnymalinky, because Spammy is gaunt and gangly.
  " 'Save it, Faither,' Paterson spat. 'this isnae the fuckin' movies. I don't need to prove to masel' that I can waste any I'm yous cunts.' He shook his head derisively. 'you think this gangly yin wasnae just lucky back there? Yous think yous were fuckin' geniuses 'cause the polis never found you? Listen, Faitherr, an' you listen as well, Daddy Long Legs. The only reason yous cunts made it this far is because they were followin' orders to look in the wrang places, an' because they knew we had yous in oor sights the whole fuckin' time. Wan phone call, wan order, and yous three were dropped. And the phone call's came, by the way.' "
  
  Well, I had a few moments where I was on the edge of the seat, thinking Jack Parlabane and his fiance Sarah were going to bite the dust, but Jack Parlabane knows what he's doing.
  
  Great political and capitalists put-down. If only we had a few people like Jack Parlabane around now.
  
  
  
• 
  Rachael Hewison

  I think my issue is that I love Jack Parlabane too much. Brookmyre spoiled us with the first book in this series by having it pretty much entirely from Jack's point of view. In this book he shares the pages with most of the characters, which leaves you craving the pages with Jack on them. It did give us entirely different angles to the story and I particularly liked the scenes with the suspects in the forest but for me it just lost some of the sparkle. The relationship between Jack and Sarah had been totally toned down too which was sad.
  
  In saying that it was another clever plot, with fantastic baddies and loveable goodies. It all tied in perfectly as only Brookmyre can do and he built up to a fantastic climax.
  
  I'm looking forward to the next one and I'm hoping there's lots more Jack!
• 
  Simon Butler

  Another sound Scottish political thriller/comedy from Chris Brookmyer. This early career novel is not quite as polished as his more recent books. Brookmyer makes his anti-Tory political allegiance unmistakable throughout (which is no bad thing). The plot is peopled with despicably immoral politicians, corrupt cops & murderous agents of the British state. The only people who stand in their way are Scotland's last true investigative journalist, a young lawyer just starting her career in Glasgow & 4 working class blokes framed for the murder of a Rupert Murdoch-esque media billionaire.
• 
  Shawn

  Although published in 1997 and referencing the post-Thatcher Tories, this crime/political comedy makes perfect sense to anyone who lived through the reign of George W. and the Wall Street Follies that led to our current situation. Ah, if only we had our Jack Parlabane! (Who might, of course, uncover a few unsavory links between the Obama White House and the corporate world as well.)
• 
  Daniel

  Friend leaving the country left a collection of Brookmyre books with me. He writes like summer blockbusters should be made; fun & exciting with none of that "my-soul-just-died-a-little" after-taste. Now, if I could only find my copy of "One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night".
• 
  Deanne

  A great crime story with a crafty plot, and with a dark sense of humour which appeals to my own twisted sense of fun, I'm an optomistic-pessimist.
  Jack sounds like the sort of person you want on your side in a fight, he has a sense of justice but seems to believe in playing dirty.