Greatly entertaining. ( )

John Houston is a prodigiously productive thriller writer. Now his wife has been shot at their luxury apartment in Monaco and he is on the run. It sounds like the plot of one of his thrillers. His atelier – the group of ghostwriters who write his thrillers to his specification – meet to discuss the implications. One of them, Don Irvine, is convinced John will contact him for help. Meanwhile the Monaco police are pursing their own lines of enquiry.

This is a very clever book. It gives you a thriller while also deconstructing the thriller genre. As each character considers his next step (and they are all ‘he’, we’re definitely talking male gaze here), they see it through the prism of a crime novel. There are also literary references littered throughout the story as the characters indulge in intellectual one-upmanship (and I mean ‘man’). The workings of the publishing industry are laid bare.

The characters are all deliciously obnoxious. If you want your protagonists to be heroes or role models or friends, then this is not the book for you. Houston is vulgar and boorish. The ghostwriters are affluent by most people’s standards (Irvine owns comfortable properties in Putney and Fowey) but see themselves as hard done by in comparison to Houston. He flaunts all the clichés of excessive wealth – fast cars, luxury homes, an absurdly large watch…

But while Houston mocks his readers for their low literacy levels and addiction to predictable plotting, and views his books as ‘product’, he also researches them impeccably and is fastidious in his editing of the ghosts. There is both mockery of Houston’s factory approach and a respect for the craft. You could argue this ambiguity extends to his readers too – he is, after all, giving them what they want.

I had a couple of reservations. I felt the plot relied overly on the naivety of one of the characters. I kept expecting a further twist that didn’t come. Having said that, the end was thought-provoking. The book also needed a decent edit. There are a few clunky repetitions which could easily have been smoothed away. (Houston would have been on it.) Given that the cover screams ‘international bestseller’ I’m sure the budget could have taken it.

Overall, though, it’s a funny and well-paced thriller, especially if you’re interested in the history of crime fiction as a form.

This review first appeared at https://katevane.wordpress.com/ ( )

I really enjoyed this little jeu d'esprit from Philip Kerr - a sort of Bond with irony, and I don't mean mere smart-alec one-liners a la Roger Moore. The reader is compelled to follow to the end, masochistically enjoying the knowledge that Kerr is playing him, as well as amusing himself, I think, largely at his own expense. The end brings the wry smile of the shared joke, even though the joke is on us throughout - as well we've known, all along. ( )

John Houston is a mega-selling author, who runs an “atelier” of writers – he comes up with the stories, they bang out the actual prose… and the books are of course sold under Houston’s name. It makes him millions of dollars a year and his writers a comfortable living. If this sounds a little familiar, it’s because Houston is clearly based on James Patterson. But Houston has decided to pack it all in. He wants to write something himself, to prove he has the writing chops. So he closes down his atelier and pays off his writers… Shortly afterwards, his wife is found murdered in their Monaco apartment, and Houston has done a runner. The police contact Don Irvine, the first writer to join Houston’s atelier (the two were friends and colleagues at an advertising agency), but he can shed no light on the murder. And then, as you’d expect to happen in a novel such as this, Houston contacts Irvine, pleads innocence and asks for Irvine’s help. Which he is happy to give. The novel is broken into sections, alternating between first-person narrations from Irvine’s and Houston’s point of view. And pretty soon things aren’t what Houston, Irvine or even the Monaco police thought they were. As thrillers go, there’s not much in here that hasn’t been done before. However, Kerr does a top job of satirising mega-selling authors of the likes of Patterson, their books, and the publishing industry which supports them. For that alone, it’s worth reading. ( )

Prolific best-selling writer John Houston [think James Patterson, Clive Cussler etc] is on the run for murdering his much younger wife: with him is Don Irvine, former colleague, old friend and ex army hard man who helps him escape the Monaco police - John is so rich only a tax haven like Monaco will do - and prove his innocence.
Oh yes, John is innocent: it wouldn't be much of a story is he actually did the deed. But there's more: John pushes out several bestsellers a year under his name, but he doesn't actually write them himself. No, he does a 30 page plot outline and passes them on to Don and a couple of other writers to turn into books for him.
Recently though John has decided to go back to writing himself: he has disbanded his writers' studio and is working on a new book, careless of the fact that this leaves his amanuenses in the lurch. Could one of these suddenly unemployed hacks have framed him for the killing?
Not as stylish or good as many of his other books but it's still Philip Kerr and he's always a delight. ( )