Complicity

Iain Banks

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.

The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find out that th police are checking out a series of deaths that are happening right now. And Cameron might just know more about it than he'd care to admit...

Involvement; connection; liability - Complicity is a stunning exploration of the morality of greed, corruption and violence, venturing fearlessly into the darker recesses of human purpose.

Review by Chrissi (090400) Rating (9/10)

Review by Chrissi
This I do believe is the only book that we own three copies of...and why this has come about you may well ask. You see, Nigel is very fussy about the condition of his books and, having raved about this one to a friend and subsequently giving/lending it as the ideal way to spend a long-haul flight, we had to obtain another copy (paper back again, but then we got a hard back because we saw it, you know how it goes). Unfortunately the original (no longer in pristine condition but well travelled) came home as the friend who had borrowed it returned it as being "sick - I can't believe that you thought I would like this! What kind of person do you think I am?" It had never occurred to us that he would not like it (sorry Jon), as we both find it to be completely brilliant.

I really do empathise with Cameron Colley, he is sooooo cool, but as with certain other Mr. Banks novels, it is the very black humour (and a frighteningly fertile imagination) that makes it rise above a standard 'journalist leading hunt for criminal gets personally involved... has personal luggage and moral dilemma... gets bad guy at end..' type story.

I can also say that I have read this book lots of times, Cameron is an old friend, and, although my scottish accent sounds terrible and I do not like whisky, Scotland is a much more real place for me just because of Mr. Banks, although I do not really want to visit just in case...
Chrissi (9th April 2000)