Douglas Lindsay is another Scottish writer supposedly in the same vain as Irvine Welsh or Christopher Brookmyre.
After reading about him on the Internet I put one of the books on my wishlist for Christmas and duly received not the first in the sequence but the second. My fault entirely but at the end of the day this book served as good an introduction as any to Douglas Lindsay.
Barney Lindsay is a barber on the run. According to the tabloid press he is a psycho serial killer who is responsible for about half a dozen killings and just about every bad goal that the Scotland team have lost in the last 30 years! Fortunately, he isn’t really a bad guy and only two deaths were down to him (accidental, of course). The others were down to his crazy mother.
However, Barney is a bit of a feckless idiot who doiesn’t think anyone will believe him, so he goes on the run and ends up in a monastery near Durness in Sutherland. Of course, as soon as he gets there a mad monk goes on a killing spree while trying to revenge his wronged father from 30 years before. The reason for this is fairly silly as we found out at the end of the book. Again, Barney gets blamed and he has to go into hiding.
Meanwhile, DS Mulholland and DC Proudfoot are duly despatched from Strathclyde’s finest to investigate and apprehend the said demon barber. Their pursuit is quite amusing and incompetent and it is actually quite incredible how they accidentally manage to track Barney down. At the same time, they are trapped by the worst snowstorm of the century in the monastery while trying to find Barney.
I could go on. The plot of the book is quite silly and unbelievable at times but its only there to build on the previous book and to contribute to the asinine characterisation of Barney and also to gives us the laughs. The book is very funny in parts and if that wasn’t there I wouldn’t have much to recommend for the discerning crime fan. However, it is and it may make me end up reading more of the Barney Thomson tales. I just hope he starts to glean a wee bit of intelligence on the way!
After reading about him on the Internet I put one of the books on my wishlist for Christmas and duly received not the first in the sequence but the second. My fault entirely but at the end of the day this book served as good an introduction as any to Douglas Lindsay.
Barney Lindsay is a barber on the run. According to the tabloid press he is a psycho serial killer who is responsible for about half a dozen killings and just about every bad goal that the Scotland team have lost in the last 30 years! Fortunately, he isn’t really a bad guy and only two deaths were down to him (accidental, of course). The others were down to his crazy mother.
However, Barney is a bit of a feckless idiot who doiesn’t think anyone will believe him, so he goes on the run and ends up in a monastery near Durness in Sutherland. Of course, as soon as he gets there a mad monk goes on a killing spree while trying to revenge his wronged father from 30 years before. The reason for this is fairly silly as we found out at the end of the book. Again, Barney gets blamed and he has to go into hiding.
Meanwhile, DS Mulholland and DC Proudfoot are duly despatched from Strathclyde’s finest to investigate and apprehend the said demon barber. Their pursuit is quite amusing and incompetent and it is actually quite incredible how they accidentally manage to track Barney down. At the same time, they are trapped by the worst snowstorm of the century in the monastery while trying to find Barney.
I could go on. The plot of the book is quite silly and unbelievable at times but its only there to build on the previous book and to contribute to the asinine characterisation of Barney and also to gives us the laughs. The book is very funny in parts and if that wasn’t there I wouldn’t have much to recommend for the discerning crime fan. However, it is and it may make me end up reading more of the Barney Thomson tales. I just hope he starts to glean a wee bit of intelligence on the way!
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