To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. As he hunts for the tape, Starkey is pursued by several parties, including an IRA contingent with a reputation for mayhem and violence. Black romantic comedy set around the troubled "peace process" and its effect on a cynical Belfast hack.

The setting and background are explored with real understanding; you feel that you know what it was like to have lived in Ulster at that time, that you have got inside a very bad place in history, and under its skin. It's a complete rip-off of, or homage to, The Thirty-Nine Steps (antihero on the run, grumpy love interest, marvellous macguffin) but every scene contains the stupendous Thewlis, with his crap goatee, wretched haircut and gangly frame, doing the everyman hero to perfection. It looked like toffee poured into an icicle mold, briittle and unwieldy, the bruising on my face, all but invisible in the yellowed light of my room, was more noticeable but ignored, as most everyone was too busy looking at my jaggedy hair. When the police suspect Starkey for the murder of Margaret and her mother, as well as the kidnapping of Patricia, Starkey is forced to tell the entire story to Parker. Tohle je bráno jako humoristická knížka… a ano, pokud se chlámáte u Schindlerova seznamu, tak se budete řezat smíchy i tady.

But, it would keep me from wanting to box this characters ears as I burst out laughing at his latest installment of a good idea. It turns what happened was Dan’s lover Margaret is the daughter of David McGarry, political ally of Mark Brinn, who is the front runner for prime minister of Northern Ireland at the upcoming election that is less than two weeks away. Time after time he was kidnapped, beaten, shot, released, escaped or saved, and the book ended with him alive and went home to his wife.

I still like the author’s writing style and dark humor, so I may give the next book in the series a try.

In this audio version, the narrator has the right accent and brings the characters to life but he does read quite a few sentences with what I would consider the wrong emphasis. Given that what’s happening in Northern Ireland isn’t exactly to be taken lightly, it’s to be expected that, in the U. Written when there was no end in sight to The Troubles in Northern Ireland, this is an offbeat and generally engaging mystery thriller.

With the exception of an unexpected ending turning on double murder, the plot machinations are formulaic, but Bateman rarely lets the action flag.Instead he's languished in supporting roles in Hollywood with other stars -- including Brando and Dennis Quaid -- who also should have known better. Only their expert training will allow them to survive a near-impossible mission -- breaking into CIA headquarters. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. The film's messages about the horrors and idiocy of war and particularly the Irish civil war are familiar and would have been corny in a straight drama, but as in Catch-22 and other classic black comedies, the absurd humor of the film makes it powerful. Ultimately, according to Christopher Booker of Booker Prize fame, we read stories to believe wrongs can be righted and that there is some purpose and justice in the world.

For some reason, I always imagined Colin Bateman as a John Cleese meets Oscar Wilde kind of figure, which says enough about my admiration for the author. After surviving an assault from a squad of hit men, retired CIA black ops agent Frank Moses reassembles his old team for an all-out war. What followed are pages of nonstop action where Dan tried to stay one step ahead of his pursuers but consistently failed. On joining his new flame at her place: "Margaret went and opened the door slightly and an elderly Jack Russell pressed his face through the gap. American TV regular Richard Grant is lovely and believable as the visiting reporter from the US who came to cover the upcoming elections but is more interested in learning about the difference between the different types of scotch.Set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the novel's events follow a turbulent period in the life of married, cynical and usually drunk journalist Dan Starkey.