All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye - Christopher Brookmyre

I read this on the recommendation of friends at work. It's comedy, or perhaps a comedy thriller. The plot is that a law-abiding forty-something Scottish grandmother finds her son threatened by an international arms-dealing conspiracy, and joins a team of crack mercenaries to rescue him. Sounds pretty tacky, but it's really rather well done. The characters are not cardboard cut-outs (ok, a few of the baddies are, but most everyone else is well-developed), the plot works surprisingly well with a few decent twists, and the comedy is reasonably black. The action scenes are tense. My overall impression is that it's comedy fluff, but extremely well-written comedy fluff which really shows up most of the genre.

Posted 2010-12-22.