Rating: 4/5
Review:
Readable and funny
I enjoyed The Truth About Archie And Pie. It’s a comic mystery
which is actually funny and which has some genuine content to it as
well.
Be warned, the plot
is bonkers. Tom Winscome, a rather smug pillock in PR (who narrates
the book) comes into possession of some mathematical manuscripts, and
as his life then comes apart he finds himself in the middle of murder
plots, possibly being threatened by the Belarusian mafia and so on
while having to solve some mathematically-based mysteries to find out
what is going on and save himself and his friends. Put like that, it
sounds pretty terrible, but it’s well written, witty enough to make
me laugh out loud several times, the maths elements are enjoyable and
simply explained, and it has a plot which is just (just!) coherent
enough to make a decent mystery.
Jonathan Pinnock has
an easy, readable style with neatly-painted (if sometimes absurdly
extreme) characters, like the vicar who “had a plummy, earnest
voice that managed to sound sympathetic and judgemental at the same
time,” and he gets Tom’s hopeless lack of self-awareness very
well. I liked this little line after he has been a pain to his
girlfriend who has left him a note saying that she has gone out with
Samantha to discuss man problems: “Samantha’s boyfriend was an
arse, so I wasn’t a bit surprised by this.” Tom does develop a
little during the book, which is also a good aspect.
Pinnock also takes
some neat, humorous swipes at a lot of modern idiocies, like
‘What if he’s
got a gun?’
‘We’re in
Hoxton, Tom. If anyone found a gun in Hoxton, they’d use it in some
kind of post-ironic artwork.’
OK, it’s an easy
target, but it’s nicely done and there’s plenty of enjoyable
stuff in the same vein about internet behaviour, conspiracy theories,
absurd corporate language and so on.
This isn’t a
comedy classic for me; I couldn’t quite give it five stars because
I felt it could do with a little tightening up in places, but it’s
a very enjoyable read and I will be looking out for the sequel.
(My thanks to
Farrago for an ARC via NetGalley.)
No comments:
Post a Comment