In A Big Boy Did It... , his beleaguered hero Raymond Ash is struggling with the banal reality of his life as an English teacher and lamenting the evaporation of his student dreams. Responsibility isn't pleasant, Raymond has found. He takes refuge in a sad virtual existence, his online doodling substituting for real life. And then he encounters an old friend, whom he thought dead. Simon has achieved success in rock star-like terms: massive financial rewards, global travel, even notoriety. But his route has been that of the professional killer, and at that trade he's top of the tree. Raymond is seduced by the excitement of time spent with his old pal, even though he's reluctant to get involved with him again. But get involved he does, and soon every aspect of his life is under threat, with Ray yearning for the pretend violence of a computer game over the messy reality he's catapulted himself into.

Brookmyre sees terrorists and killers such as Simon as being self-deluded; whatever reasons they think they're performing their ruthless activities for (religion, a cause, money), they're really on a sad power trip, sublimating their craving for mass acclaim into violence. But he's never solemn--no diatribes here, unlike the organised religion he has so much distaste for. Brookmyre is adept at pulling the rug from beneath the reader's feet (Simon is attractive, until we get to know him better). The writing is always sharp, always funny, always innovative.--Barry Forshaw

Internet contact between ex-school friends these days leads to some disturbing encounters, and Brookmyre's version of the scenario is typically murderous. Brookmyre is interested in whether or not the index to future of violent behaviour might be discerned in the school playground. DS Karen Gillespie is bemused by a cack-handed attempt at burning a pair of bodies; this takes place outside Glasgow (in fact, in the area in which she grew up). And in a nearby lodge, strange attempts have been made to clean up what appears to be the same crime, but (as a pathologist points out), everything here is handled as maladroitly as the murder. Two suspects appear, but when Karen discovers that they were at primary school together (along with one of the murder victims), things begin to look like a grisly version of Friends Reunited.

Brookmyre readers will know exactly what to expect from this scenario, and they won't be disappointed. If the level of invention is not as delirious as in previous books, Karen Gillespie is as quirkily characterised as ever.

--Barry Forshaw