Chris Brookmyre - Want You Gone

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Brilliant

Chris Brookmyre has become a must-read author for me; I enjoyed Black Widow very much and I thought Want You Gone was even better.

This time, Jack Parlabane is based in London where he and his shadowy occasional collaborator, the hacker Buzzkill, are drawn into some very devious and dangerous hacking and industrial espionage.  There's a twisty plot which develops convincingly and very grippingly and it became very exciting – I found it very difficult to tear myself away and fairly raced through the book.  There is an awful lot about the techniques of hacking and the circumventing of security systems, which may sound rather dry and technical, but which is so well done that I found it absolutely riveting.  There are some thrilling and nail-biting episodes, a genuine sense of threat and layer upon layer of mystery and deceit.  Brookmyre also cleverly plays with stereotypes and assumptions for some neat but very plausible surprises.

In addition, he paints his usual subtle and convincing portraits of his characters in the now familiar combination of third person narrative of Parlabane's activities and inner life, and first-person narrative from another character.  It's very well done indeed; I was completely drawn in to their lives as well as the plot, and Brookmyre makes some shrewd observations about people, behaviour and modern life along the way.

In short, I thought Want You Gone was brilliant and immensely entertaining.  Very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)