a terrible effort
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I listened to the audio version of this novel, and was extremely disappointed. I've lived in Aberdeenshire all my life and I've never heard anyone talking the way they do in this audio novel. So to the publishers: Either get someone with an Aberdeen accent to read the next novel, or don't bother trying, & just go with "BBC" English all the way. What you've done with this one is inauthentic, offputting and yes, insulting.
I listened ti the CDs, n it ended up gan oot the car windie. I've bed up here a ma life n ah've niver heard onybody speakin like at, they ether need ti git an Aberdonion on board for i next ane, or dinna bather wi accents at a. Fit thiv diene wie this book is nithing short o a disgrace.
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Carry On Up the Truncheon
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What annoys me most about Flesh House isn't so much what's inside its pages, but what's written on the front and back covers. Let's start with Mark Billingham (a personal friend of the author if memory serves), who declares : "Fierce, unflinching crime fiction of the highest order". Sorry, but none of that is true, frankly. A more accurate appraisal might have been "Feeble, uninteresting crime fiction of the lowest order." On the back Val Mcdermid calls it "Ferocious and funny" - well, some of the imagery is pretty grim and unpleasant but the relentless attempts at comedy - and I'm talking about on almost every single page and which rarely raise a smile anyway - totally undermine any dark atmosphere the author was trying to create. Reginald Hill opines "If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident, strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then look no further." Well, Hill's observations are pure fiction in themselves, unless he had said "look elsewhere" for such objectives.
Let me explain why I say these things. The narrative is not taut, it is amongst the worst I have seen, and one of the reasons for this is MacBrides's continued obsession with mixing the narrative style with the dialogue style such that all the expletives spoken by the characters appear just as frequently in the narrative. That's amateurish, annoying and arduous for those of us like myself who have put up with this 'method' for four consecutive novels. I shouldn't really even mention the word 'prose' here, because there simply isn't any. It's just words. Nothing poetic, nothing beautiful and nothing to admire. Just as grudging a complaint on my part is the mention of 'strong characterisation', which as a description is funnier than any of MacBride's attempts at comedy after four whole novels.
We have, for want of a better word, a central character in the form of DS Logan McRae; really all he represents is the story's moral conscience, the one without personality or comedic parody and consequently the most uninteresting person in the tale. Flesh House reads like a debut novel, but then so did all of its predecessors - there is categorically NO character development at all, as everybody looks, sounds and smells exactly the same as they always did. While it's true a few dramatic events fall the way of DI Insch, I am utterly sick and tired of the references to his physical size; if this book represented his introduction to the series it would have been bad enough (the words big', 'huge' and 'fat' must collectively appear well over one hundred times) but for the many who already knew of his dimensions, it's very wearisome.
Savagely dark humour? Try this extract and see if you agree:-
"She wasn't kidding about Insch's mood - by the time Logan bumped into the inspector, he looked as if someone had stuffed a hand grenade up his bum and pulled the pin. The explosion was imminent. Fire in the hole."
Er - this is not savage, nor is it dark, and come to think of it, it's not funny either. I get the impression that MacBride likes humour best of all, and is trying (very successfully, it must be said) to sell a comedy story in the crime fiction genre. The only line in the whole book that raised a smile for me - because it was subtle, for once - was on P.401 of the hardback when Logan is having a conversation over a cup of tea with the pathologist Doc Fraser. Immediately after Doc Fraser gruesomely describes the means of death (which involved decapitation), Logan calmly replies, "Here you go. Milk, two sugars." A very rare example of what might be regarded as clever humour, but all of the rest throughout the tale is straight from the stage of a corny pantomime or a Carry-On film. The 'horrors' are plentiful but these are totally undermined by MacBride's insistence on trying to be funny, and vice versa.
The only saving grace is that Flesh House is a little better than the one before - Broken Skin - which was a complete shambles. The irony is that I have a feeling that MacBride could do much better than this if he wanted to, but has cleverly assessed the demand from the biggest audience in order to maximise sales. That's writing for money rather than out of passion, but also a sad reflection of the demands and standards of the contemporary British crime-fiction reader who if only they knew, could find much fiercer and more unflinching crime fiction elsewhere (try the first two of Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series for example), funnier and better-used humour from John Connolly, immeasurably finer prose from R J Ellory and stronger characterisation from Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin or Val McDermid among many others. Flesh House is popcorn crime fiction for the text-message loving populace and little more. There is so much better quality to be found outside of and beyond these pages.
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cracking crime story, gory but with humour.
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Again another excellent crime story, keeps you guessing and is hard to put down.Good humour throughout, but why did it take until page 326 for McBride to get the spelling of trichloroethylene correct??
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Flesh House
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I have read all of Stuart MacBride's other books and enjoyed them. However, when I read a British Crime novel, I really don't want to be confronted by the gruesome pages I found in Flesh House. I have to confess not to have finished it, and finding something else "quieter" to read to take my mind from it.
Not at all what I expected.
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Stunning!!
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This was a real can't put down page turner. Paul Johnston's Quint Dalrymple, Jack Kerley's Carson Ryder and John Connolly's Charlie Parker books are all fantastic but you can't help liking the down at heeel main character, Logan McRae, even though you don't really know what he looks like etc. With this book, even when you can see what's coming, it hits you harder than you expect.
The only thing I didn't like about this book is the final five pages. Not gonna spoil it for anyone. Can't wait for the next book from a cracking writer who, despite the intensity of the narrative, still finds time to make the reader laugh with a dark wit.
I awarded five stars because I was enthralled, despite the ending.
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