The Final Cut

Douglas Lindsay

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

Barney Thomson is back in the seventh and final episode of the crime series that has irrevocably redefined the barbershop death junky novel. Searching for answers to his tortured, murder-filled existence, Barney is drawn to take a job in London, as personal barber to Thomas Bethlehem, the head of an upcoming and trendy marketing agency. Such is Barney's fate, that just as he arrives in the capital, a serial killer by the name of Harlequin Sweetlips begins to run amok among the young, go-getting executives of Bethlehem's company. Suddenly, but entirely predictably, Barney is once again in the middle of a multiple murder investigation. As Satan returns to haunt Barney and to steer him down his final, inevitable path, could it be that Bethlehem's latest client, a wise-cracking New Englander with an easy smile and a handy ability with a thunderbolt, is the man to provide the deliverance that has eluded Barney Thomson for so long?

Review by Nigel (291009) Rating (9/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 9/10
The Final Cut is set a couple of years after the events portrayed in The Haunting of Barney Thomson. Barney is still in his Millport barbershop, cutting the hair of the regulars, with Keanu and Igor. The story opens with Barney contemplating his life; things aren't going particularly well and the shop can barely support one let alone three. With a heavy melancholy Barney wonders why he never seems to be able to find the right balance - why all or nothing - when fate once again casts the dice in Barney's game of life.

Out of the blue, and for no apparent reason, he is offered the job as the in-house barber at Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane, an up-and-coming London marketing firm, to exclusively cut the hair of their employees. After accepting the job he finds himself inexplicably promoted to the Head of TV Contracts as the position is suddenly made vacant Barney style, i.e. the previous incumbent was brutally murdered. As one by one the executives are dispatched Barney finds himself wishing for the quiet life of Millport as he is once again embroiled in a serial killer's game of cat and mouse.

Have you ever found your self sitting in front of the TV watching a commercial that has just interrupted your favourite film, with your jaw hanging open, not in amazement, but in incredulity? How can something so bad be ever aired to the public?

Now consider the process. A company, big enough and with sufficient money to spare for TV advertising, decides to enhance the sales of their product. It therefore appoints a marketing agency to come up with, one would assume, an award winning advert that will have sales in the stratosphere and the product name on everyone's lips. This agency then sets about discussing the product it is to present to the nation as the best thing since sliced bread. After not an inconsiderable amount of time, and hence money, a number of ideas are tabled and the best picked, this is then outlined to the client. At this point you would assume any self respecting individual would catch the blinkered rubbish presented, but no, "what a great idea" is proclaimed by one and all. The advert is taken into production, finally presented to the client, approved and then aired. And this is what you just watched with utter disbelief... now, who in this process is the most gullible?

The Final Cut is set in just such a world and Douglas Lindsay once again delivers a hugely entertaining tale in his incomparable darkly humorous style. I'm not going to give anything away but the question you have got to ask yourself is can Barney make it out alive?

Although the back cover states the seventh and final episode we know directly from the horse's mouth that when the Barney books find the success they deserve another instalment is not totally out of the question. I mean, look at the Hitch Hiker's trilogy... so, to all fans of Barney, spread the word, buy the books as presents, buy the books as loft insulation, buy the books... make Barney and Douglas Lindsay give Robert Langdon and Dan Brown cause to quake in their boots and maybe we can all laugh again at Barney's names for haircuts.

Great book, may it not be the last.
Nigel (29th October 2009)