Hmm. I like Chris Brookmyre’s later Jack Parlabane books very much, but don’t get on at all with the Ambrose Parry books. The Cut lies somewhere in between – quite a decent if overblown plot but with some significant flaws. (There are some mild spoilers for the early chapters in what follows, but no more than is given away in the publishers’ blurb.)
The story revolves around two characters: Jerry, a young student who is interested in horror movies including the “video nasties” of the 80s, and Millicent who was a brilliant make-up effects artist who worked on them. Millicent, now in her 70s has recently finished a long sentence for a murder during a film shoot of which she has no recollection, when Jerry comes to share the house in which she lives. Between them, they begin to suspect that Millie was framed and a twisty plot emerges in which sordid goings-on emerge, involving government ministers, rich media tycoons, mafia gangsters and so on – plus the inevitable Lost Tape.
It’s quite well done - Brookmyre is a good storyteller (although I found the cutting between timeframes and the slow, slightly confusing emerging real story slightly irritating) and it’s well written so I did want to know what happened. However, there is a lot of trading of movie references which began to smack of authorial showing off, Millicent’s remarkable character transformation (along with quite a lot of the psychology) didn’t really ring true to me, there is some pretty clunky modern-day “realisation” about the exploitation of young women back in the 80s, there are quite a few outrageous coincidences and so on. All this detracted from my enjoyment and made it more like one of the run-of-the-mill thrillers which appear by the ton each year.
Overall, I’d say that it’s not bad, but it’s not great; it’s a decent brain-off read, especially if you’re a big movie fan.
(My thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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