Christopher Brookmyre
Audio Tape - ISIS (2003) |
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Quite Ugly One Morning
Yeah, yeah, the usual. A crime. A corpse. A killer. Heard it. Except this stiff happens to be a Ponsonby, scion of a venerable Edinburgh medical clan, and the manner of his death speaks of unspeakable things. Why is the body displayed like a slice of beef? How come his hands are digitally challenged?
A post-Thatcherite nightmare of frightening plausibility, Quite Ugly One Morning is a wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller, laced with acerbic wit, cracking dialogue and villains both reputed and shell-suited.
‘Very violent, very funny. A comedy with political edge, which you take gleefully in one gulp’ Literary Review
Kenny Blyth is from Peebles in the Scottish Borders. He trained at Queen Maragaret’s college in Edinburgh, and upon graduating, won the BBC Radio Carleton Hobbs Bursary award 2000. he spent 9 months on the BBC Radio Drama company, being involved in over one hundred radio plays. He continues to enjoy working in radio, voice-overs and television.
Unabridged:
6 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 7 hrs 10 mins
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Audio Tape ISIS (2003) |
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The Sacred Art of Stealing
The press tend to talk about bank robberies as daring, ingenious or audacious, never as ‘Dadaist’, even the ones who know what ‘Dadaist’ means. But how else does one explain choreographed dancing gunmen in Buchanan Street, or the surreal methods they use to stay one step ahead of the cops?
Angelique do Xavia is no art critic, but she is a connoisseur of crooks, and she’s sure that this heist isn’t the work of the usual sawn-offs-and-black-tights criminal. It’s her job to hunt this unique species of thief to extinction - though the fact that it’s not just his m.o. that’s cute might prove a distraction.
‘Christopher Brookmyre is a genius’ Mirror
Born in Dundee and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow, Lesley won a Laurence Olivier Award in 1986 for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the musical play Judy. Her earliest appearances were opposite Billy Connolly in The Great Northern Welly-Boot Show and The Wicker Man, for which she recorded the title song. Lesley lives in Scotland with her two children and husband, actor Terry Wale.
A Londoner by birth, Terry Wale made his debut as a professional actor at the age of thirteen. He has been a member of the RSC and the National Theatre Company. He is also a director and writer, having won a London Theatre Critics Award nomination for his musical play Judy.
Unabridged:
9 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 11 hrs 20 mins
About The Author
in his
own words… The important stuff:
Christopher Brookmyre first hit the British bookshelves in the summer of 1996 with Quite Ugly One Morning, a scurrilous satire on the then
Conservative government’s NHS reforms. The book won the inaugural Critics’ First
Blood award for the best first crime novel of the year, but is destined to be remembered
principally for featuring a huge jobbie on a mantelpiece in its opening chapter.
Its sequel, Country Of The Blind, (out in paperback
this June) provided a second outing for morally ambiguous uber-hack Jack Parlabane, this
time tenaciously probing who killed media-mogul Roland Voss (not least because Parlabane
would have quite liked to do it himself).
Brookmyre’s third novel, the Los Angeles-set Not
The End Of The World, will be published in hardback in July, taking on
millennial hysteria, Christian fundamentalism, pornography, cheesy b-movies and bad hair.
It has been described as “gloriously unsound” and is extremely unlikely to be
among the Daily Mail’s books of the year.
The less important stuff:
Christopher Brookmyre was born in Glasgow in 1968, and has worked as a journalist in
London, Los Angeles and Edinburgh, contributing to Screen International, The Scotsman, the
Edinburgh Evening News and The Absolute Game. Contrary to the official version, Quite Ugly
One Morning was in fact his fourth novel, but the first one to find a publisher. It
followed two veritable duffers and a more promising third, which has subsequently been
optioned for a film adaptation. He is married with no parasitic spawn.
The downright trivia (you have
been warned):
Religion: St Mirren supporter since age eight. Attended Hammarby game.
Underwent lengthy counseling. Also suffers from Hibby sympathies due to many years’
residence near Easter Road. Open to financial offers not to support your team as well.
Detests the Old Firm with a passion, but feels sorry for their supporters, who presumably
seek to associate themselves with the might of these spoiled giants to compensate for the
desolate nothingness that is their lives.
Influence and inspiration (because someone always asks): Bill Hicks,
Billy Connolly, Billy Franks, Robertson Davies, Jeff Torrington, Douglas Adams, Carl
Hiaasen, Iain Banks, Terry Gilliam, Joel Silver, James Cameron, Warren Zevon, Manic Street
Preachers, Indigo Girls, Teenage Fanclub, Mike Scott, Mutton Birds, The Skids …
Email: chrisb@cbrook.globalnet.co.uk
Christopher Brookmyre's first novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, won him the inaugural Fresh Blood Award for the best debut crime novel and held off Iain Banks as Scotland's number one bestseller in paperback. By the time his second, County of the Blind, was published, the media hailed Brookmyre as a star of the Scottish literati (with Warner and Welsh) and rewarded him with the dubious distinction of inventing tartan noir. His third novel Not the End of the World, is a story of fundamental religion and millennial hysteria with a heavy dose of Hollywood's porn industry thrown in.
Quite Ugly One Morning and County of the Blind have both been optioned for film and John Hannah (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Macallum) is also in the running to play the hero of the books, Jack Parlabane, hard-bitten journalist.
Hannah is also working on a screen adaptation of an unpublished novel by Brookmyre. Foreign translations are underway but the Glaswegian slang is proving a bit of a hurdle. With four published novels to his name, Christopher Brookmyre has yet to celebrate his 30th birthday. He lives in Aberdeen.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
Quite Ugly One Morning
(ISIS,
2003)
Aug 03
The Sacred Art of Stealing
(ISIS,
2003)
Quite Ugly One Morning
Email: 
by Christopher Brookmyre
