Where the Bodies are Buried

I'm a BIG fan of Brookmyre and was excited to see that this title was on Audio just in time for the mid-year holidays.

Jasmine Sharp is the fragile herione of this novel and her character is brilliantly written. Insecure and more than a little bewildered with the world, Jasmine carries half of the plot with her through the fast paced action, piecing together a cold-case mystery as she escapes bullets and double-dealing thugs alike. The other half is carried by a top female cop in the Glasgow poe-liss who, with her family problems and hostile male counterparts, has her own set of problems. The depth of these two leading ladies' characters is enriched by contrast with a bunch of Glasgow underworld drug dealers and bent cops.

The plot moves along at a rattling pace and resolves neatly, if a little sweetly, and is excellently narrated by Sarah Barron. A wide range of accents, tones and pitches keeps the Glasgow voice alive, perfectly portraying youth & age, regret and joy, fear and peace. Though I am not Scottish and am therefore possibly not qualified to judge, all the characters accents sounded genuine and brought the location of the action alive.

Excellent stuff, Chris Brookmyre! Keep it up!

All of the Brookmyre novels i've read/heard have been slightly surreal - flying bodyparts, schoolkids helping capture terrorists, clowns robbing banks, etc etc. This is more of a 'straight' crime novel,, but is just as good as everything else he's written, and just as good as the other stuff I read - heartily recommended

I have enjoyed many of the brookmyre books previously – in particular ‘The unsinkable rubber ducks’ and ‘Snowball in hell’ - but this book lacks all of the humour and gusto Christopher (now Chris!) has shown in previous titles.

The plot is thin, often tedious - the characters forgettable and the story line is as transparent as a piece of clingfilm.

Please can we have Christopher back, Chris proved to be a flop!

Don't know why he's suddenly Chris instead of Christopher Brookmyre, I nearly went past it thinking someone was copying him!

A girl starts working for her uncle in a PI firm, she's terrified she's rubbish and her uncle disappears a week into the job, leaving her to run the show. The cops aren't much help, but is this due to lack of information or the covering up of something sinister?

Best quote, "It's not Starsky and Hutch, more like Jack and Victor"

I like Brookmyre's style of writing which often combines wit with a cracking good story. This does not have the funny interludes of his Parlabane series but the story more than makes up for it in sheer quality. This is a book that should be made into a two or three part TV mini series with star actors - it is that good. BBC take note and get cracking. A "stoater" of a tale.

Chris(topher) Brookmyre has changed genre, and it's not to everybody's liking. But Jasmine Sharp grows on me, and the introduction of Tron Ingrams (for those who haven't read the book yet) enlivens things considerably. I found the book more interesting second time around, as I was able to pick up on various small hints that had escaped me the first time.



One quibble - I've not seen the paperback and don't know whether they are chapter headings or section headings, but Sarah Barron does not highlight these by a change of tone and this can be mildly confusing.

Superbly read, making the characters stand out and come alive and heightening the sense of fun Brookmyre has with language.

Quite a rubbish story which kind of really annoyed me, as it ate up a credit.