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Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod #1
Where the Bodies Are Buried
Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge. They do can't-miss-whodunit. It's a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is also a dangerous place to make assumptions. Either way she looks at it, she recognises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is merely a portent of further deaths to come. Elsewhere in the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - earning a crust working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real, and her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying by having been dead for twenty years. Cautiously tracing an accomplished killer's footsteps, Jasmine stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale
405 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
127 people are currently reading
1709 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Brookmyre
40 books1,541 followersChristopher Brookmyre is a Scottish novelist whose novels mix politics, social comment and action with a strong narrative. He has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author. His debut novel was Quite Ugly One Morning, and subsequent works have included One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, which he said "was just the sort of book he needed to write before he turned 30", and All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye (2005). Brookmyre also writes historical fiction with Marisa Haetzman, under the pseudonym "Ambrose Parry."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 306 reviews
April 20, 2021
It’s been a while since I’ve been introduced to such colorful characters. First, we have Jasmine, a self described screw up who has been reduced to helping her uncle with his PI business in Glasgow. Then, we have Catherine, a Detective Superintendent . “Catherine had often taken an odd kind of solace from considering her job analogous with that of the binmen of Glasgow.” I adored both of them - Jasmine forced to learn on the fly when her uncle goes missing and Catherine, trying to maneuver through police politics having missed out on a promotion she thought should have been hers.
This book packs on the humor with many turns of phrase. Brookmyre has a real knack for descriptions. The book moves at a strong, steady pace with no down time. The story alternates between the two women and it’s a long while before their stories intersect. And it’s not at all apparent how they will. But it’s a great twist when it does.
I’m thrilled to see this is the first in a series as I will definitely check out the later books.
This book packs on the humor with many turns of phrase. Brookmyre has a real knack for descriptions. The book moves at a strong, steady pace with no down time. The story alternates between the two women and it’s a long while before their stories intersect. And it’s not at all apparent how they will. But it’s a great twist when it does.
I’m thrilled to see this is the first in a series as I will definitely check out the later books.
November 2, 2014
There's something about the far northern latitudes -- the weather, perhaps? -- that seems to bring out the noir in the writers who live there. The whole Scandinoir industry is a case in point; would Harry Hole be such a wreck if he lived on the Costa del Sol? So, too, it goes with Tartan Noir. My main exposure to crime north of the Tweed has been through Ian Rankin, so belatedly taking up Christopher Brookmyre's 2011 Where the Bodies Are Buried was a happy accident. Happy, indeed.
Two parallel investigations make up the body of the novel: a police enquiry into the brutal murder of a two-bit Glasgow pusher, and the private hunt for a missing P.I. The former is led by DS Catherine McLeod, a middle-aged detective who's hit the glass ceiling inside the Glasgow police and is buffeted by the political wrangling inside the department and the personal politics within her family. The second case features twenty-something Jasmine Sharp, a former- or failed-everything almost dysfunctional enough to feature in a Swedish crime novel, who had been attempting without signal success to learn her uncle's detective trade when he suddenly disappeared. That the two cases tangle and lead to unexpected places is not, itself, unexpected.
So far, so standard. What elevates Bodies above the norm is voice and characterization.
Brookmyre's voice takes on the personalities of the point-of-view characters, flowing smoothly from type to type as he shifts from McLeod to Sharp to various hardcases. He seems to have absorbed the bleak, bitter worldview of the police, the braggadocio of the hoods, and Jasmine's utter disarray. He can be tart, smartarsed and darkly funny, or confused, vulnerable and desolate, depending on who owns the stage in each shortish chapter. While the former seems to be his natural (or more comfortable) voice, he manages to pull off Jasmine's inner life without sounding like a bloke trying to impersonate a hen.
His two main characters are women who are not only completely different from each other, but also avoid being either sex toys or guys in bras.
McLeod is persuasively settled in midlife, suffering both the physical and mental distresses that come when you realize you have more time behind you than in front of you. Her interactions with her younger husband and her two young sons feel authentically fraught with the everyday tensions and frustrations of life. At work, she deals with political weasels, the various slights that come from being a woman in a man's clubhouse, and of course the new- and old-school villains who fill her daily to-do list. Her dealings with them and her reactions to them also feel organic and well-observed. I've known American versions of McLeod and could easily recognize her.
Jasmine starts as a hot mess, a former-almost-actress who is useless at the detective arts, chronically mourning her now-departed mother, barely able to scrape up the two coins to rub together. Everything perplexes or threatens her. Yet unlike some of her Scandinavian kin, she learns, she grows, and she finds herself in work she never expected to do, far less succeed in. Her small successes and flashes of insight steadily build her into the woman she becomes by the end.
The dialog is sharp, fitted to the characters who utter it, and reasonably realistic for the setting. Brookmyre is a Scot and his characters are Scots. Theirs is not Oxbridge English. Both the dialog and the narrative go far past the occasional "wee" and "aye" Rankin would salt in to keep a Caledonian atmosphere. Just go with it; you can nearly always figure out the meaning through the context or by sounding out the dialect.
I'd give this four and a half stars if we could give half-stars; sadly, we can't. The main demerits are for a too-tidy ending to the tangled mess that preceded it and an underdeveloped central male character who feels more a type than a person (especially in comparison with the lasses). Still, it's a fine tale told well. If you like your skies gray and your morals grayer, give Bodies a try. Brookmyre's written a few others over the past seventeen years, so there's more where this came from -- and more's the better.
Two parallel investigations make up the body of the novel: a police enquiry into the brutal murder of a two-bit Glasgow pusher, and the private hunt for a missing P.I. The former is led by DS Catherine McLeod, a middle-aged detective who's hit the glass ceiling inside the Glasgow police and is buffeted by the political wrangling inside the department and the personal politics within her family. The second case features twenty-something Jasmine Sharp, a former- or failed-everything almost dysfunctional enough to feature in a Swedish crime novel, who had been attempting without signal success to learn her uncle's detective trade when he suddenly disappeared. That the two cases tangle and lead to unexpected places is not, itself, unexpected.
So far, so standard. What elevates Bodies above the norm is voice and characterization.
Brookmyre's voice takes on the personalities of the point-of-view characters, flowing smoothly from type to type as he shifts from McLeod to Sharp to various hardcases. He seems to have absorbed the bleak, bitter worldview of the police, the braggadocio of the hoods, and Jasmine's utter disarray. He can be tart, smartarsed and darkly funny, or confused, vulnerable and desolate, depending on who owns the stage in each shortish chapter. While the former seems to be his natural (or more comfortable) voice, he manages to pull off Jasmine's inner life without sounding like a bloke trying to impersonate a hen.
His two main characters are women who are not only completely different from each other, but also avoid being either sex toys or guys in bras.
McLeod is persuasively settled in midlife, suffering both the physical and mental distresses that come when you realize you have more time behind you than in front of you. Her interactions with her younger husband and her two young sons feel authentically fraught with the everyday tensions and frustrations of life. At work, she deals with political weasels, the various slights that come from being a woman in a man's clubhouse, and of course the new- and old-school villains who fill her daily to-do list. Her dealings with them and her reactions to them also feel organic and well-observed. I've known American versions of McLeod and could easily recognize her.
Jasmine starts as a hot mess, a former-almost-actress who is useless at the detective arts, chronically mourning her now-departed mother, barely able to scrape up the two coins to rub together. Everything perplexes or threatens her. Yet unlike some of her Scandinavian kin, she learns, she grows, and she finds herself in work she never expected to do, far less succeed in. Her small successes and flashes of insight steadily build her into the woman she becomes by the end.
The dialog is sharp, fitted to the characters who utter it, and reasonably realistic for the setting. Brookmyre is a Scot and his characters are Scots. Theirs is not Oxbridge English. Both the dialog and the narrative go far past the occasional "wee" and "aye" Rankin would salt in to keep a Caledonian atmosphere. Just go with it; you can nearly always figure out the meaning through the context or by sounding out the dialect.
I'd give this four and a half stars if we could give half-stars; sadly, we can't. The main demerits are for a too-tidy ending to the tangled mess that preceded it and an underdeveloped central male character who feels more a type than a person (especially in comparison with the lasses). Still, it's a fine tale told well. If you like your skies gray and your morals grayer, give Bodies a try. Brookmyre's written a few others over the past seventeen years, so there's more where this came from -- and more's the better.
September 6, 2011
You hear these rumours, and they can panic a person. "Christopher Brookmyre has gone straight with his latest book." I was twitchy. How could he (either to his readers or to himself)? Surely the man cannot possibly have lost his acute sense of the bizarre, his sly, dry and clever sense of humour. Could he? Of course not. Daft idea. WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED might be a police procedural, crime fiction based book, but it's classic Chris(topher) Brookmyre from the start to the end. How could it not be! Glasgow Policing 101 - as explained to one of the main characters Detective Catherine McLeod, when a rookie cop:
'This is Glesca.'... 'Any time you're confused, take a wee minute to remind yourself of that inescapable fact: this is Glesca. We don't do subtle, we don't do nuanced, we don't do conspiracy. We do pish-heid bampot bludgeoning his girlfriend to death in a fit of paranoid rage induced by forty-eight hours straight on the batter. We do coked-up neds jumping on a guy's heid outside a nightclub because he looked at them funny. We do drug-dealing gangster rockets shooting other drug-dealing gangster rockets as comeback for something almost identical a fortnight ago. We do bam-on-bam. We do tit-for-tat, score-settling, feuds, jealousy, petty revenge. We do straightforward. We do obvious. We do cannaemisswhodunit. When you hear hoofbeats on Sauchiehall Street, it's gaunny be a horse, no' a zebra...'.
Phew. Brookmyre without a rant ... well ... I'd have to double check that the earth's rotation was still in alignment.
But is this good crime fiction? Yes. In a nutshell. It's very good crime fiction. It's a nice, complicated, and very believable plot. It's full of the sorts of cunning and stupidity that you expect from the cops and crooks. There's dedication, there's a bit of the past coming forward to screw with the present, the interlacing of worlds over many generations. There's also more than enough twists and turns, and even a couple of lovely poignant moments. There's some hugely funny moments, there's some poignant ones as well. One of Brookmyre's talents has always been to create very believable, human characters. McLeod is a marvellous combination of a dedicated, clever senior cop with a home life and all the doubts and insecurities that lots of people with rotten jobs have about hanging onto everything they hold dear. Another main character - Jasmine Sharp, niece of a missing ex-cop, private detective - recently bereaved when her mother and sole parent died, Jasmine's a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. She's not the world's greatest trainee private detective, but she gets points for being a very dedicated workmate and friend to her boss. Two excellent female characters, different from each other, but the same in many ways, Brookmyre's also created a supporting cast who work with these two extremely well. Okay there's one scenario that's a bit hard to swallow at the start of the book - but the end of the book explains it all - and besides that, it wasn't until I was well into the action that the lightbulb went off and this reader suddenly went... what the?
That's the other thing that works in WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED, as it does in any Brookmyre book. The pace is fantastic. The action rolls on, the people do their thing, the tension rises, the reader loses sleep.
There's nothing worse than a panic over where one of your favourite authors is going. Dismiss it from your minds. Chris / Christopher / Mr Brookmyre, whatever he and his publishers want to call him knows how to write books. Very good books. WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED is one of them.
'This is Glesca.'... 'Any time you're confused, take a wee minute to remind yourself of that inescapable fact: this is Glesca. We don't do subtle, we don't do nuanced, we don't do conspiracy. We do pish-heid bampot bludgeoning his girlfriend to death in a fit of paranoid rage induced by forty-eight hours straight on the batter. We do coked-up neds jumping on a guy's heid outside a nightclub because he looked at them funny. We do drug-dealing gangster rockets shooting other drug-dealing gangster rockets as comeback for something almost identical a fortnight ago. We do bam-on-bam. We do tit-for-tat, score-settling, feuds, jealousy, petty revenge. We do straightforward. We do obvious. We do cannaemisswhodunit. When you hear hoofbeats on Sauchiehall Street, it's gaunny be a horse, no' a zebra...'.
Phew. Brookmyre without a rant ... well ... I'd have to double check that the earth's rotation was still in alignment.
But is this good crime fiction? Yes. In a nutshell. It's very good crime fiction. It's a nice, complicated, and very believable plot. It's full of the sorts of cunning and stupidity that you expect from the cops and crooks. There's dedication, there's a bit of the past coming forward to screw with the present, the interlacing of worlds over many generations. There's also more than enough twists and turns, and even a couple of lovely poignant moments. There's some hugely funny moments, there's some poignant ones as well. One of Brookmyre's talents has always been to create very believable, human characters. McLeod is a marvellous combination of a dedicated, clever senior cop with a home life and all the doubts and insecurities that lots of people with rotten jobs have about hanging onto everything they hold dear. Another main character - Jasmine Sharp, niece of a missing ex-cop, private detective - recently bereaved when her mother and sole parent died, Jasmine's a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. She's not the world's greatest trainee private detective, but she gets points for being a very dedicated workmate and friend to her boss. Two excellent female characters, different from each other, but the same in many ways, Brookmyre's also created a supporting cast who work with these two extremely well. Okay there's one scenario that's a bit hard to swallow at the start of the book - but the end of the book explains it all - and besides that, it wasn't until I was well into the action that the lightbulb went off and this reader suddenly went... what the?
That's the other thing that works in WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED, as it does in any Brookmyre book. The pace is fantastic. The action rolls on, the people do their thing, the tension rises, the reader loses sleep.
There's nothing worse than a panic over where one of your favourite authors is going. Dismiss it from your minds. Chris / Christopher / Mr Brookmyre, whatever he and his publishers want to call him knows how to write books. Very good books. WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED is one of them.
March 18, 2021
Where the Bodies are Buried is the first book in the Jasmine Sharp & Catherine McLeod series set in Glasgow. It was published in 2011, and having read most of his other books, I’ve been meaning to get to this one for a while, but there always seemed to be another ARC to finish first (in fact, apart from audiobooks, this is the first non-ARC I’ve read in over three months - and it’s telling that it was Brookmyre that I reached for first...) I was therefore initially disappointed to find this one a bit slow, with little humour and a focus on organised crime, not one of my preferred sub-genres, but the mystery and characters sucked me in regardless for another flawlessly plotted crime thriller.
Jasmine Sharp is a twenty year old unemployed actress grieving the loss of her beloved mother, who has taken a completely unsuitable job as a private investigator for her Uncle Jim, a retired policeman. When he goes missing, she starts looking into his recent cases for clues, including a woman whose parents disappeared thirty years earlier, and another file with nothing but a name and address. When she goes to interview the mystery man, they find themselves being shot at, and decide the only way to be safe is to keep investigating. Detective Superintendent Catherine McCleod of Glasgow CID is a good cop simmering with resentment at being passed over for promotion. When a mid-Level drug dealer’s body is dumped in an alley, she suspects a turf war is beginning, but with senior officers apparently turning a blind eye and politics driving every decision, who can she trust to help take down the worst criminals of all?
I was reminded why I so rarely read treebooks these days - this introduces a large number of characters and I was constantly having to look back to remind myself who was who, missing the kindle’s search function. At one point I even caught myself trying to flick the page to turn it.
This was a real slow burn, and I found the early chapters, which were mostly Jasmine and Catherine’s internal monologues about their different insecurities, rather dull, but once they each kick into their respective roles as detectives - one a seasoned and cynical professional, the other very much a reluctant amateur who nevertheless has hidden skills, I enjoyed their stories, and was curious as to how they would eventually intersect. I particularly liked Jasmine’s diffident associate and liked how his unsavoury past is gradually revealed, and the gradual evolution of the relationship between them.
This was very different to the early books of the Jack Parlabane series, and marks the turning point where Brookmyre switched from dark satirical action thrillers to straight crime. It’s not as accomplished as the later Parlabane adventures, and I can see why people reading this one might be disappointed, but he’s such a great storyteller that even an average offering is better than most others, and I will certainly be continuing this series. 3.5 rounded up for unexpected twists and a satisfying ending.
Jasmine Sharp is a twenty year old unemployed actress grieving the loss of her beloved mother, who has taken a completely unsuitable job as a private investigator for her Uncle Jim, a retired policeman. When he goes missing, she starts looking into his recent cases for clues, including a woman whose parents disappeared thirty years earlier, and another file with nothing but a name and address. When she goes to interview the mystery man, they find themselves being shot at, and decide the only way to be safe is to keep investigating. Detective Superintendent Catherine McCleod of Glasgow CID is a good cop simmering with resentment at being passed over for promotion. When a mid-Level drug dealer’s body is dumped in an alley, she suspects a turf war is beginning, but with senior officers apparently turning a blind eye and politics driving every decision, who can she trust to help take down the worst criminals of all?
I was reminded why I so rarely read treebooks these days - this introduces a large number of characters and I was constantly having to look back to remind myself who was who, missing the kindle’s search function. At one point I even caught myself trying to flick the page to turn it.
This was a real slow burn, and I found the early chapters, which were mostly Jasmine and Catherine’s internal monologues about their different insecurities, rather dull, but once they each kick into their respective roles as detectives - one a seasoned and cynical professional, the other very much a reluctant amateur who nevertheless has hidden skills, I enjoyed their stories, and was curious as to how they would eventually intersect. I particularly liked Jasmine’s diffident associate and liked how his unsavoury past is gradually revealed, and the gradual evolution of the relationship between them.
This was very different to the early books of the Jack Parlabane series, and marks the turning point where Brookmyre switched from dark satirical action thrillers to straight crime. It’s not as accomplished as the later Parlabane adventures, and I can see why people reading this one might be disappointed, but he’s such a great storyteller that even an average offering is better than most others, and I will certainly be continuing this series. 3.5 rounded up for unexpected twists and a satisfying ending.
July 5, 2020
Where the Bodies are Buried' by Christopher Brookmyre is book one in the Jasmine Sharp/Catherine McLeod mysteries. A Scottish noir, the plot(s) is (are) as twisty as a pretzel!
Twenty-year-old Jasmine Sharp is learning how to be a private detective. After her mother died from pancreatic cancer, she approached Jim Sharp, proprietor of Sharp Investigations, for a job. She calls him uncle although he isn’t - he is a cousin of her mother’s. She needs a paying gig. She dropped out of drama college in her last year to take care of her mother, but she has realized being a partially trained, inexperienced actor has left her with no real job skills or any way to make a living after her mother’s death. She was told her father died shortly after her birth.
Jasmine is still a girl. She is scared to death as she has never had to deal with adult matters or with the adult world. Her mother took care of everything. Floundering, she is a terrible detective especially since she lacks self-confidence along with experience, but Uncle Jim continues to train her. At first, she does clerical work for him, but he soon has her working in the field as a detective. He is calm and he definitely is being easy on her despite her many mistakes and errors of judgement while following subjects of interest to Jim’s clients.
Uncle Jim was a Glasgow cop, now retired. He knows where the city’s bodies are buried, metaphorically and politically speaking, going back thirty years from being a cop. But when Jim disappears one weekend soon after Jasmine has been taken under his wing, she panics. What is she to do now? When the cops tell her they won’t do anything given that there is no sign of a crime, she decides she will try to find out what happened to him.
In Glasgow, a body is found. Superintendent Catherine McLeod is given the case of the murder of James McDiarmid, reputed employee of a Glasgow drug lord, Patrick Steel. His body is found behind his Tanning Salon, a known money-laundering store. Is a gang war starting?
These two cases seem unrelated. Maybe they are? I am not going to tell...
“Where the Bodies are Buried” is very interesting! It is a classic dark murder mystery. Sprinkled throughout is a lot of Scottish slang. No worries, gentle reader - context helps with deciphering these non-American ‘English’ words and there always is Google Search! I loved the strange semantics since this was the first time I ever heard (saw) Scottish slang before! The book is worth reading for the taste of Scottish colloquial speech, but this is also an entertaining case of squirrelly threads leading every which way!
Twenty-year-old Jasmine Sharp is learning how to be a private detective. After her mother died from pancreatic cancer, she approached Jim Sharp, proprietor of Sharp Investigations, for a job. She calls him uncle although he isn’t - he is a cousin of her mother’s. She needs a paying gig. She dropped out of drama college in her last year to take care of her mother, but she has realized being a partially trained, inexperienced actor has left her with no real job skills or any way to make a living after her mother’s death. She was told her father died shortly after her birth.
Jasmine is still a girl. She is scared to death as she has never had to deal with adult matters or with the adult world. Her mother took care of everything. Floundering, she is a terrible detective especially since she lacks self-confidence along with experience, but Uncle Jim continues to train her. At first, she does clerical work for him, but he soon has her working in the field as a detective. He is calm and he definitely is being easy on her despite her many mistakes and errors of judgement while following subjects of interest to Jim’s clients.
Uncle Jim was a Glasgow cop, now retired. He knows where the city’s bodies are buried, metaphorically and politically speaking, going back thirty years from being a cop. But when Jim disappears one weekend soon after Jasmine has been taken under his wing, she panics. What is she to do now? When the cops tell her they won’t do anything given that there is no sign of a crime, she decides she will try to find out what happened to him.
In Glasgow, a body is found. Superintendent Catherine McLeod is given the case of the murder of James McDiarmid, reputed employee of a Glasgow drug lord, Patrick Steel. His body is found behind his Tanning Salon, a known money-laundering store. Is a gang war starting?
These two cases seem unrelated. Maybe they are? I am not going to tell...
“Where the Bodies are Buried” is very interesting! It is a classic dark murder mystery. Sprinkled throughout is a lot of Scottish slang. No worries, gentle reader - context helps with deciphering these non-American ‘English’ words and there always is Google Search! I loved the strange semantics since this was the first time I ever heard (saw) Scottish slang before! The book is worth reading for the taste of Scottish colloquial speech, but this is also an entertaining case of squirrelly threads leading every which way!
May 14, 2020
Ok, so if this wasn't exactly a 180 from Brookmyre's previous path, it was still a sharp enough turn to rattle a bit. In my head, I tend to group things in periods: the fantastic era (me in my teens-20s) and the modern era (anything from late 90's to now, it's all a blur anyway). The modern era stuff is mostly enjoyed for nostalgic values and remembrance of how things used to be (a reference, a recognised passage, a glimmer...). Sometimes, however, new stuff surprises you!
What surprised me most about the first installation in the Sharp/McLeod-series is that this Brookmyre suddenly has loads more in common with my favourite Denise Mina than with Carl Hiaasen. And not only - he's even less gritty and dark than Mina! This being the author that gave us the Incredible SelfDecapitating Man and loads of gore and violence and then just told us that A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away.
Even so, I'm quite happy about this development - I enjoyed the book quite a lot. This was a good crime story with quite interesting characters and I'm happy that I got part 2 waiting on my shelf.
What surprised me most about the first installation in the Sharp/McLeod-series is that this Brookmyre suddenly has loads more in common with my favourite Denise Mina than with Carl Hiaasen. And not only - he's even less gritty and dark than Mina! This being the author that gave us the Incredible SelfDecapitating Man and loads of gore and violence and then just told us that A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away.
Even so, I'm quite happy about this development - I enjoyed the book quite a lot. This was a good crime story with quite interesting characters and I'm happy that I got part 2 waiting on my shelf.
May 4, 2021
4.75.
Classic Chris Brookmyre. The first 30% of the book is taken up by character development. There is some action, of course, but a reader looking for fast thrills might be disappointed by that first 30%. I wasn’t (disappointed). I enjoyed discovering the quirks and background of the two main characters - Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod. I do not share one trait or personality feature with Jasmine - she is a complete opposite of me - but it was enjoyable living in her shoes for awhile. She was a fun character to get to know. Catherine was perhaps a bit more like me in some ways, particularly in her wish to have daughters rather than sons, but she was unlike me in many ways as well. So it wasn’t a matter of bonding with these two women as “sisters under the skin”; it was a matter of enjoying the visit with two very distinct and well-drawn women.
Sharp and McLeod are working on completely different mysteries. Their stories are told in alternating chapters. Eventually, we know, they will meet, but they don’t meet for quite some time - past the 50% mark, I believe - so we are left to guess at how their stories will intersect.
Around the 30% mark, the action intensifies, and twists start to occur, particularly with the introduction of Fallan. Fallan is an enigma, and remains one throughout the book. Deliberately, I’m sure. I was happy to note that there are two more Sharp/McLeod/Fallan books that follow this one. Maybe we’ll get to learn more of his backstory in them.
As always, I found Brookmyre to be an excellent writer. I was able to follow the different threads of the book without any problems. Each main character had a distinct voice.
From the 50% point, I couldn’t stop reading. Yes, again Brookmyre kept me up all night, or at least until 4 am, when the main mysteries were solved. Lots of action, lots of twists and turns. And a satisfactory conclusion, except that I was left with wanting to know more about Fallan’s relationship to both Jasmine and McLeod, although I suspect we’ll learn more about that in future books in this series.
Okay, why a rating of 4.75 instead of 5? Because I couldn’t understand what the gangsters were saying most of the time. I got that they had heavy accents. I thought their conversations might be humorous, but I couldn’t get the humour if I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Brookmyre needs to tone down the dialect a bit so it is understandable from a foreign reader's point of view. Possibly a reader who was familiar with the accents of various social classes in Scotland could read, and laugh, at these conversations. But I could not. They read as if they were written in a foreign language.
Classic Chris Brookmyre. The first 30% of the book is taken up by character development. There is some action, of course, but a reader looking for fast thrills might be disappointed by that first 30%. I wasn’t (disappointed). I enjoyed discovering the quirks and background of the two main characters - Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod. I do not share one trait or personality feature with Jasmine - she is a complete opposite of me - but it was enjoyable living in her shoes for awhile. She was a fun character to get to know. Catherine was perhaps a bit more like me in some ways, particularly in her wish to have daughters rather than sons, but she was unlike me in many ways as well. So it wasn’t a matter of bonding with these two women as “sisters under the skin”; it was a matter of enjoying the visit with two very distinct and well-drawn women.
Sharp and McLeod are working on completely different mysteries. Their stories are told in alternating chapters. Eventually, we know, they will meet, but they don’t meet for quite some time - past the 50% mark, I believe - so we are left to guess at how their stories will intersect.
Around the 30% mark, the action intensifies, and twists start to occur, particularly with the introduction of Fallan. Fallan is an enigma, and remains one throughout the book. Deliberately, I’m sure. I was happy to note that there are two more Sharp/McLeod/Fallan books that follow this one. Maybe we’ll get to learn more of his backstory in them.
As always, I found Brookmyre to be an excellent writer. I was able to follow the different threads of the book without any problems. Each main character had a distinct voice.
From the 50% point, I couldn’t stop reading. Yes, again Brookmyre kept me up all night, or at least until 4 am, when the main mysteries were solved. Lots of action, lots of twists and turns. And a satisfactory conclusion, except that I was left with wanting to know more about Fallan’s relationship to both Jasmine and McLeod, although I suspect we’ll learn more about that in future books in this series.
Okay, why a rating of 4.75 instead of 5? Because I couldn’t understand what the gangsters were saying most of the time. I got that they had heavy accents. I thought their conversations might be humorous, but I couldn’t get the humour if I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Brookmyre needs to tone down the dialect a bit so it is understandable from a foreign reader's point of view. Possibly a reader who was familiar with the accents of various social classes in Scotland could read, and laugh, at these conversations. But I could not. They read as if they were written in a foreign language.
February 21, 2020
I couldn’t get to grips with Brookmyre’s earlier thrillers which were saturated with outright aggression, written in convincing but near incomprehensible dialect. This is the first of a more mainstream series however, and it’s far more accessible. The author still pulls few punches in portraying the nasty backstreets where Glasgow’s gangs brawl and bleed, but the sense of place now grounds the story – rather than distancing me from it.
The two women protagonists are also unusually well-rounded. The police detective isn’t simply a bloke with mammary glands glued on; she’s a three-dimensional and very definitely female person. Her younger counterpart, Justine the trainee private investigator, could so easily have been a feeble damsel in distress, but she’s also given a layered personality with a core of something stronger than we initially suspect.
Plus there’s a splendid plot; a decades old disappearance which triggers an outbreak of bloody violence, more missing persons and gangland violence. Great stuff. I’ll try the next one.
8/10
There are more reviews of gripping crime / thrillers over at http://www.murdermayhemandmore.net
The two women protagonists are also unusually well-rounded. The police detective isn’t simply a bloke with mammary glands glued on; she’s a three-dimensional and very definitely female person. Her younger counterpart, Justine the trainee private investigator, could so easily have been a feeble damsel in distress, but she’s also given a layered personality with a core of something stronger than we initially suspect.
Plus there’s a splendid plot; a decades old disappearance which triggers an outbreak of bloody violence, more missing persons and gangland violence. Great stuff. I’ll try the next one.
8/10
There are more reviews of gripping crime / thrillers over at http://www.murdermayhemandmore.net
August 1, 2025
It's crime, it's Glasgow, it's Brookmyre, what else can I say?
It's written really well with a couple of great female leads whose stories come together in a brilliant and unexpected way. It's a good good book. And now I want more.
It's written really well with a couple of great female leads whose stories come together in a brilliant and unexpected way. It's a good good book. And now I want more.
January 14, 2014
I love this genre of Scottish crime fiction, for almost exactly the opposite of the reasons that I like most of my favourite books. With a lot of books, I love expanding on things, going beyond where you would expect to go, exploring new places, mixing unusual combinations of elements. With tartan noir, it’s the constraints that make the genre what it is, and it is doing clever things within such a narrow framework (your detective should be like this, your tone should be like this, choose setting from Edinburgh, Glasgow or misc remote island) that really makes it sparkle. It’s difficult. It’s formulaic. But as far as I’m concerned, all tartan noir sounds the same like all wine tastes the same.
Christopher Brookmyre has been on the edge of my consciousness for quite a while – partly because of being really good at the tongue in cheek end of Scottish crime novels, which I keep meaning to get around to reading, and partly because he’s El Presidente of the Scottish Humanists and I am finding myself knowing an increasing number of Scottish humanists. Where the Bodies are Buried is, apparently, Brookmyre playing the genre straight, and if this is “an exciting new departure” for him, I really want to read some of his old stuff. Someone’s been reading their Laidlaw. And that someone is both of us, and it only makes me like him more.
Every June, for the last few years, I stop everything and read Scottish hardboiled crime for a month. You get to see all the variations, the conventions, trace the fashions and influences. It just so happened that at the end of June last year I was in the middle of this, and it was my eighth novel that month (I think), and I ended up abandoning it because it starts slowly and by that point I was ready for something with wizards in it. Second time round it kept my attention a lot more, and I had a lot of fun with it.
The negatives: a cast of thousands of indistinguishable, resulting in me flipping back and forth yelling “Who the hell is Whitaker?!” on several occasions. They were difficult to keep track of, and while I like a convoluted plot, I’m not sure I could tell you what was going on because some of the characters had very similar names, or two names and a nickname each.
Relatedly, the “pull out another character in the last ten pages” trick is Not On, Mr Brookmyre, and the fact that it happened twice resulted in the loss of a star. Because we’re better than that, and this book was better than that. The star was also lost for the gratuitous use of every-bloody-thing being connected. All of it. He could have left off the last two chapters, in which four characters who did not need any more expanding upon suddenly discovered connections that really did not need to be there. For a book that was so deftly handled for the first 370 pages, the last 30 were maddening and just a bit silly.
The positives, which otherwise vastly outweigh the negatives: my god, this was so deftly done. For a complicated plot, I loved how it was navigated. I loved the converging dual perspectives. I loved Katherine and Jasmine, the erstwhile lady-protagonists of varying degrees of street sense. Not a single teenage girl died in this book, +10 and one cookie. Everyone else writing hard-boiled: that was your excuse evaporating. This one passes the Bechdel test, what does yours do?
It was tightly plotted, the outcome was genuinely unexpected, carefully signposted and mostly satisfying, although I can’t help thinking that Glasgow is fucked. The obligatory confusing prologue was turned on its head in an exceedingly rewarding manner, although, see above about the “surprise! new character! everyone say hi to this guy!” trick.
Brookmyre’s writing voice is excellent: witty, mostly understated, with a few creative swears and a penchant for dropping tension on your head like a ten-tonne weight. I’d love to see what he does with actively satirical stories. I bet they’re a riot.
Speaking of which – given that I have probably not picked his best to start with, what next? Quite Ugly One Morning? All Fun and Games? Have Christmas book tokens left; will travel.
Christopher Brookmyre has been on the edge of my consciousness for quite a while – partly because of being really good at the tongue in cheek end of Scottish crime novels, which I keep meaning to get around to reading, and partly because he’s El Presidente of the Scottish Humanists and I am finding myself knowing an increasing number of Scottish humanists. Where the Bodies are Buried is, apparently, Brookmyre playing the genre straight, and if this is “an exciting new departure” for him, I really want to read some of his old stuff. Someone’s been reading their Laidlaw. And that someone is both of us, and it only makes me like him more.
Every June, for the last few years, I stop everything and read Scottish hardboiled crime for a month. You get to see all the variations, the conventions, trace the fashions and influences. It just so happened that at the end of June last year I was in the middle of this, and it was my eighth novel that month (I think), and I ended up abandoning it because it starts slowly and by that point I was ready for something with wizards in it. Second time round it kept my attention a lot more, and I had a lot of fun with it.
The negatives: a cast of thousands of indistinguishable, resulting in me flipping back and forth yelling “Who the hell is Whitaker?!” on several occasions. They were difficult to keep track of, and while I like a convoluted plot, I’m not sure I could tell you what was going on because some of the characters had very similar names, or two names and a nickname each.
Relatedly, the “pull out another character in the last ten pages” trick is Not On, Mr Brookmyre, and the fact that it happened twice resulted in the loss of a star. Because we’re better than that, and this book was better than that. The star was also lost for the gratuitous use of every-bloody-thing being connected. All of it. He could have left off the last two chapters, in which four characters who did not need any more expanding upon suddenly discovered connections that really did not need to be there. For a book that was so deftly handled for the first 370 pages, the last 30 were maddening and just a bit silly.
The positives, which otherwise vastly outweigh the negatives: my god, this was so deftly done. For a complicated plot, I loved how it was navigated. I loved the converging dual perspectives. I loved Katherine and Jasmine, the erstwhile lady-protagonists of varying degrees of street sense. Not a single teenage girl died in this book, +10 and one cookie. Everyone else writing hard-boiled: that was your excuse evaporating. This one passes the Bechdel test, what does yours do?
It was tightly plotted, the outcome was genuinely unexpected, carefully signposted and mostly satisfying, although I can’t help thinking that Glasgow is fucked. The obligatory confusing prologue was turned on its head in an exceedingly rewarding manner, although, see above about the “surprise! new character! everyone say hi to this guy!” trick.
Brookmyre’s writing voice is excellent: witty, mostly understated, with a few creative swears and a penchant for dropping tension on your head like a ten-tonne weight. I’d love to see what he does with actively satirical stories. I bet they’re a riot.
Speaking of which – given that I have probably not picked his best to start with, what next? Quite Ugly One Morning? All Fun and Games? Have Christmas book tokens left; will travel.
October 10, 2025
I really enjoyed this. I think that it was well written, the characters were rich and vivid and the plot was great.
It was really well paced and I got sucked in really quickly.
It was really well paced and I got sucked in really quickly.
April 14, 2025
I made an unfortunate mistake with this book. I have previously enjoyed books by Christopher Brookmyre which were very fast paced thrillers with snappy sarcastic dialogue. I did not realise titles published under "Chris" Brookmyre are slower, drearier stories without the sharp banter until I read some reviews.
This book was good in the final 10 chapters, the first 35 however were fairly painful. There's just not much happening as they grasp at various straws and red herrings to little effect. The main characters are good, there's a policewoman who felt very well written and a recent graduate who was a bit inept and had to be carried, metaphorically, by a male accomplice through most of the dramatic parts of the story.
The plot was fine and tied everything up nicely at the end. I liked the character development. I just really struggled to want to keep reading the book. Maybe because there are two almost unrelated investigations running parallel to each other neither really hooked me and made me want to hear what happened next. The audiobook narration was good although the Scottish brogue was a bit thick.
This book was good in the final 10 chapters, the first 35 however were fairly painful. There's just not much happening as they grasp at various straws and red herrings to little effect. The main characters are good, there's a policewoman who felt very well written and a recent graduate who was a bit inept and had to be carried, metaphorically, by a male accomplice through most of the dramatic parts of the story.
The plot was fine and tied everything up nicely at the end. I liked the character development. I just really struggled to want to keep reading the book. Maybe because there are two almost unrelated investigations running parallel to each other neither really hooked me and made me want to hear what happened next. The audiobook narration was good although the Scottish brogue was a bit thick.
February 13, 2012
The dropping of the "topher" from the first name heralds a bit of a change in direction for the author. The over the top, deliberately wacky plots have been replaced by what can only be desribed as a standard crime novel.
It still has splatterings of Brookmyre wit and comments on the state of glasgow but it is all very toned down and serious.
Looks like a repeating character in Jasmine the would be PI who is investigating the disappearance of her uncle with another sub plot of the murder of a local crim being investigated by Catherine a DI.
Brookmyre goes for the strong female lead again.
To be honest, I struggled to keep up with the plots and the characters. There is an old mystery of a missing glaswegian family and secret adoptions that is slowly revealed throughout the book. This means for a long part, you are not really that sure how things interelate. All is well revealed but there is a lot going on.
Not bad. Brave choice in moving away from what has made him famous and no doubt old fans will complain.
It still has splatterings of Brookmyre wit and comments on the state of glasgow but it is all very toned down and serious.
Looks like a repeating character in Jasmine the would be PI who is investigating the disappearance of her uncle with another sub plot of the murder of a local crim being investigated by Catherine a DI.
Brookmyre goes for the strong female lead again.
To be honest, I struggled to keep up with the plots and the characters. There is an old mystery of a missing glaswegian family and secret adoptions that is slowly revealed throughout the book. This means for a long part, you are not really that sure how things interelate. All is well revealed but there is a lot going on.
Not bad. Brave choice in moving away from what has made him famous and no doubt old fans will complain.
February 28, 2015
This book is the love child of Kate Atkinson and Ian Rankin is a lovely clever fun read and highly recommended to those who like their crime fiction with a side dollop of fleshed out characters.
January 3, 2019
Having read and enjoyed two other books by Christopher Brookmyre (A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away and The Sacred Art of Stealing) I was keen to read more. The two previous books were part of his Angelique de Xavier series which are written in an amusing manner: undemanding fun, with lots of enjoyable popular culture references and some great one liners.
Having watched a Christopher Brookmyre interview on YouTube, I already knew that Where the Bodies Are Buried, the first in the Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod series, marked a departure and was much more serious with little of the humour of his earlier books. He even abbreviated his name to the pared down Chris Brookmyre for this book.
I am delighted to report that, what it lacks in humour, it makes up for with credible characters, and two engrossing and clever parallel plots. The stories are tense and the two lead characters are brilliantly drawn. By the final third of the book I was gripped and had to keep reading until I'd finished. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.
4.5/5
Where the Bodies Are Buried (2011) by Christopher Brookmyre
Having watched a Christopher Brookmyre interview on YouTube, I already knew that Where the Bodies Are Buried, the first in the Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod series, marked a departure and was much more serious with little of the humour of his earlier books. He even abbreviated his name to the pared down Chris Brookmyre for this book.
I am delighted to report that, what it lacks in humour, it makes up for with credible characters, and two engrossing and clever parallel plots. The stories are tense and the two lead characters are brilliantly drawn. By the final third of the book I was gripped and had to keep reading until I'd finished. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.
4.5/5
Where the Bodies Are Buried (2011) by Christopher Brookmyre
October 18, 2012
‘Where the Bodies are Buried’ shows Christopher Brookmyre as a thriller writer almost in complete control of his material. Beginning with a gangland murder and swiftly adding in the mysterious tale of the long lost disappearance of some middle class parents and their child, this book keeps piling on the crimes and red-herrings with a dazzling sureness. Most mystery tales – let’s be honest – would be happy to follow just those two strands through to their denouement. But Brookmyre adds in further murders, robberies, disappearances (and makes it clear that all of this is going to connect together somehow), so that the questions pile up in a dizzying fashion. What makes this most amazing, and not simply over-ambitious, is that the strands of these different mysteries are kept so clear and untangled, and that when the various reveals come it all makes perfect sense. This is a novel which shows its author as a master juggler.
Set in Glasgow’s crime-land, the book follows a female detective and concurrently a young actress turned PI as they each tackle their own mystery. (The two, of course, are differing parts of the same mystery). The splitting of the narrative does mean it takes longer to get to know either character, and perhaps the Scottish crime milieu is one I’ve encountered a few times too often, but in the main this is a bravura exercise.
Set in Glasgow’s crime-land, the book follows a female detective and concurrently a young actress turned PI as they each tackle their own mystery. (The two, of course, are differing parts of the same mystery). The splitting of the narrative does mean it takes longer to get to know either character, and perhaps the Scottish crime milieu is one I’ve encountered a few times too often, but in the main this is a bravura exercise.
October 30, 2012
Review of Where the Bodies Are Buried
A gritty, realistic, down-to-earth and very vivid portrayal of contemporary Glasgow-both the “underside” of crime and the “topside” of crime-hunting and investigation, “Where the Bodies Are Buried” is violent and brutal, yet I found the novel very compelling. Author Christopher Brookmyre delves deeply into his characterisations whilst simultaneously juggling eras some twenty-five years apart, and does so masterfully. Pitting the crime lords against the “polis,” and private investigators against the corrupt of both castes, this mystery/thriller never once lets go of its chokehold on the reader. I read it in one sitting, impelled to do so by the need to discover “who dun it” and “why” and “how” and “where.” I truly did not see the denouments in advance, so I give this 5 thumbs-up for carefully planting clues and still delivering immense and multiple surprises.
I’ll definitely be looking into more novels by Author Christopher Brookmyre.
A gritty, realistic, down-to-earth and very vivid portrayal of contemporary Glasgow-both the “underside” of crime and the “topside” of crime-hunting and investigation, “Where the Bodies Are Buried” is violent and brutal, yet I found the novel very compelling. Author Christopher Brookmyre delves deeply into his characterisations whilst simultaneously juggling eras some twenty-five years apart, and does so masterfully. Pitting the crime lords against the “polis,” and private investigators against the corrupt of both castes, this mystery/thriller never once lets go of its chokehold on the reader. I read it in one sitting, impelled to do so by the need to discover “who dun it” and “why” and “how” and “where.” I truly did not see the denouments in advance, so I give this 5 thumbs-up for carefully planting clues and still delivering immense and multiple surprises.
I’ll definitely be looking into more novels by Author Christopher Brookmyre.
July 3, 2019
Chris Brookmyre goes full Rankin on us!
I didn't know about this development (and should being a Brookmyre fan) and, to be fair, it should have got four stars but then I don't read Brookmyre for the Rankin Experience. Nevertheless, he pulled it off admirably. Hard-boiled baddies and hard-boiled 'polis' and a hard-boiled plot. Or maybe carefully simmered. It was a joy to read and completely convincing and no-one was killed by a blender or a rusty pair of electric carving knives. Though plenty of people are killed. I particularly liked being fooled by the innocuous call from the gas board.
I like my Brookmyre gory and opinionated but I'm looking forward to reading about these two women again.
I didn't know about this development (and should being a Brookmyre fan) and, to be fair, it should have got four stars but then I don't read Brookmyre for the Rankin Experience. Nevertheless, he pulled it off admirably. Hard-boiled baddies and hard-boiled 'polis' and a hard-boiled plot. Or maybe carefully simmered. It was a joy to read and completely convincing and no-one was killed by a blender or a rusty pair of electric carving knives. Though plenty of people are killed. I particularly liked being fooled by the innocuous call from the gas board.
I like my Brookmyre gory and opinionated but I'm looking forward to reading about these two women again.
September 15, 2023
Excellent story with plenty of twists and turns - the only thing I didn't really like was that the language was a little too educated for the characters it was portraying but nonetheless apart from being a little out of place it didn't ruin it.
I would definitely recommend this to read
I would definitely recommend this to read
June 11, 2025
What an excellent book!! The dual storyline makes this book a bit more intriguing and far more fun read! Brookmyre was able to create extremely likable characters and make the reader excited to learn more about them. I was a big fan of all of the pop culture references. It truly gives a strong sense of authenticity. (I thought I was the only 'nerd' who watched "Beckett" religiously, so it's nice to see I'm not alone in that regard 😂😂.)
Overall, this is an outstanding crime fiction that was executed perfectly. We have a complicated plot while still remaining entirely in the realm of belief. I love the interlocking worlds of the cops and criminals and how the past comes back to dictate events in the present. It's the prime environment for twists, and Brookmyre takes full advantage!
Overall, this is an outstanding crime fiction that was executed perfectly. We have a complicated plot while still remaining entirely in the realm of belief. I love the interlocking worlds of the cops and criminals and how the past comes back to dictate events in the present. It's the prime environment for twists, and Brookmyre takes full advantage!
August 18, 2021
Jasmine lavora per suo zio nella sua agenzia di investigazioni.
Un mattino entrando in ufficio ha la sensazione che qualcosa non vada...infatti lo zio non si trova da nessuna parte, così decide di cercarlo.
Catherine, poliziotta, indaga sulla morte di alcuni pregiudicati. spacciatori di droga che fanno 'parte di una gang di Glaskow.
Le due indagini ad un certo punto si incroceranno.
Un mattino entrando in ufficio ha la sensazione che qualcosa non vada...infatti lo zio non si trova da nessuna parte, così decide di cercarlo.
Catherine, poliziotta, indaga sulla morte di alcuni pregiudicati. spacciatori di droga che fanno 'parte di una gang di Glaskow.
Le due indagini ad un certo punto si incroceranno.
December 19, 2025
Very good thriller, character development and style. The characters have their own “voice”, the author (not surprised and glad each time!) does a really good job care to give them a dimension so that very quickly they feel familiar to us readers and we want to know more. Page turner in the good sense, I started the 2d book right away.
March 24, 2023
I did find it quite slow for first few chapters but really got into it by the end and really enjoyed it. I didn't realise it was book 1 of 3 so now have to read next one to find out what happens to all the loose threads!
August 2, 2017
Grippy, twisty, compulsive reading and characters I want to get to know better. Nice introduction to an author I've heard rave reviews of. Definitely want to read more!
December 1, 2019
This...book...is...SO...good!!!
January 14, 2015
I knew I was to attend a writing workshop run by Arvon at Moniack Mohr in Inverness-shire in Scotland and that Christopher Brookmyre, a leading exponent of Tartan Noir was to be the guest tutor. I had only read one of his books, Quite Ugly One Morning. It is reviewed here https://bookreviewstoday.wordpress.co... , but I did not really enjoy that book. So I decided to read another of his novels in the hope that I might get on better before I met the author. I chose Where the Bodies are Buried from my local library and I really did enjoy it.
Aficionados of Christopher Brookmyre told me that his was one of his more serious books, that he had “gone straight” with Where the Bodies are Buried. I was surprised, this is a crime fiction novel, but it did not seem serious to me. To me, the author had certainly not lost his acute sense of the bizarre. Brookmyre’s sly, dry and clever sense of humour was ever present. Where the Bodies are Buried might be a police procedural, crime fiction based book, but it is still classic Brookmyre from the start to the end.
The story is based in Glasgow, Scotland. Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they do not do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge. They do can’t-miss-whodunit. This is a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is a dangerous place to make assumptions. Which ever way she looks at it, she realises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is not good news. Across the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is a reluctant and somewhat incompetent assistant in her uncle Jim’s private investigation business.
Then Jim goes missing and Jasmine has to become a real investigator. Her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin, whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying because he has been dead for twenty years. Jasmine traces footsteps of the accomplished killer. She stumbles into a web of corruption and secrets that have been hidden for years. The corruption could tear an entire police force apart, provided Jasmine can stay alive long enough to tell the tale.
So do not panic. This book is bizarre and beautifully paced. In Where the Bodies are Buried the action rolls on, the people do their thing, the tension rises. I lost sleep as I did not want to put the book down. Christopher Brookmyre certainly knows how to write books. He can write very good books. Where the Bodies are Buried is one of these.
Aficionados of Christopher Brookmyre told me that his was one of his more serious books, that he had “gone straight” with Where the Bodies are Buried. I was surprised, this is a crime fiction novel, but it did not seem serious to me. To me, the author had certainly not lost his acute sense of the bizarre. Brookmyre’s sly, dry and clever sense of humour was ever present. Where the Bodies are Buried might be a police procedural, crime fiction based book, but it is still classic Brookmyre from the start to the end.
The story is based in Glasgow, Scotland. Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they do not do whodunit. They do score-settling. They do vendettas. They do petty revenge. They do can’t-miss-whodunit. This is a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is a dangerous place to make assumptions. Which ever way she looks at it, she realises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is not good news. Across the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is a reluctant and somewhat incompetent assistant in her uncle Jim’s private investigation business.
Then Jim goes missing and Jasmine has to become a real investigator. Her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin, whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying because he has been dead for twenty years. Jasmine traces footsteps of the accomplished killer. She stumbles into a web of corruption and secrets that have been hidden for years. The corruption could tear an entire police force apart, provided Jasmine can stay alive long enough to tell the tale.
So do not panic. This book is bizarre and beautifully paced. In Where the Bodies are Buried the action rolls on, the people do their thing, the tension rises. I lost sleep as I did not want to put the book down. Christopher Brookmyre certainly knows how to write books. He can write very good books. Where the Bodies are Buried is one of these.
February 4, 2013
PROTAGONIST: Detec. Supt. Catherine McLeod; PI Jasmine Sharp
SETTING: Glasgow
SERIES: #1
RATING: 3.0
Glasgow Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has been assigned to investigate the death of a drug dealer and quickly finds herself in the middle of a turf war between two local gangs. She is also thwarted at every turn by her colleague Abercorn, who beat her out of a promotion.
At the same time, fledgling actress Jasmine Sharp has been helping her uncle, Jim, with his private investigation agency. “Helping” may not exactly be the right word for it; it seems that Jasmine blunders with every assignment she undertakes. However, when her uncle disappears, she finds she has to summon up everything that she’s learned from him in order to locate him. As she searches through Jim’s open files, she hooks up with a man named Tron Ingrams who has mysteries of his own. He definitely has his own agenda, and it’s difficult to know whether or not he is trustworthy.
The two cases are intertwined, involving the largest organized crime group in Glasgow. Brookmyre did a good job of connecting all the pieces, but at times, things became quite muddled when establishing present-day happenings with events that occurred more than twenty years earlier.
Brookmyre has written several other works of crime fiction, most of which exhibit a very twisted sense of humor. In BODIES, he has opted for a straightforward approach, which wasn’t entirely successful. Both Catherine and Jasmine struggle with their emotional lives, Catherine with putting her job over her marriage and Jasmine with the death of her beloved mother. I didn’t see enough in either of these characters to build a series around. In particular, Catherine is a bit of a cliché—fighting for respect in a male-dominated organization while neglecting her family.
WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED wasn’t a bad book; rather, I’d classify it as average. The book is supposed to be the first in a series, but I don’t feel compelled to read any future entries.
SETTING: Glasgow
SERIES: #1
RATING: 3.0
Glasgow Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has been assigned to investigate the death of a drug dealer and quickly finds herself in the middle of a turf war between two local gangs. She is also thwarted at every turn by her colleague Abercorn, who beat her out of a promotion.
At the same time, fledgling actress Jasmine Sharp has been helping her uncle, Jim, with his private investigation agency. “Helping” may not exactly be the right word for it; it seems that Jasmine blunders with every assignment she undertakes. However, when her uncle disappears, she finds she has to summon up everything that she’s learned from him in order to locate him. As she searches through Jim’s open files, she hooks up with a man named Tron Ingrams who has mysteries of his own. He definitely has his own agenda, and it’s difficult to know whether or not he is trustworthy.
The two cases are intertwined, involving the largest organized crime group in Glasgow. Brookmyre did a good job of connecting all the pieces, but at times, things became quite muddled when establishing present-day happenings with events that occurred more than twenty years earlier.
Brookmyre has written several other works of crime fiction, most of which exhibit a very twisted sense of humor. In BODIES, he has opted for a straightforward approach, which wasn’t entirely successful. Both Catherine and Jasmine struggle with their emotional lives, Catherine with putting her job over her marriage and Jasmine with the death of her beloved mother. I didn’t see enough in either of these characters to build a series around. In particular, Catherine is a bit of a cliché—fighting for respect in a male-dominated organization while neglecting her family.
WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED wasn’t a bad book; rather, I’d classify it as average. The book is supposed to be the first in a series, but I don’t feel compelled to read any future entries.
February 14, 2017
4.25 Stars This is the first in a new series featuring Catherine McLeod, a detective superintendent, and Jasmine Sharp, an actress turned private investigator. McLeod becomes involved in an investigation into a gangland torture and execution style killing. Sharp is a PI in training by her uncle who disappears. When the police do not take her uncle's disappearance seriously, Sharp takes on the investigation. McLeod and Sharp's paths cross culminating in an exciting and interesting ending. I really liked McLeod and her partner. Sharp took a little getting used to, as she is young and naive. The story has many twists and turns which could be a bit difficult to follow at times, and the Scottish slang and language took some getting used to. This is a well-written story with a lot of depth. I greatly enjoyed it and look forward to the next. Highly recommended if you like Brittish style/set mysteries.
July 4, 2012
This introduction to a new Scottish crime series gets off to a good start with an interesting array of characters, and fine attention to detail. The mean and moody streets of Glasgow are portrayed with the confidence of someone who knows the city well, and even though there is an apparent fondness for the place, there is also a realisation that an underworld of criminal activity skulks beneath the surface. There are some clever twists and turns in the plot, which together with a few red herrings combine to make a well controlled crime investigation. Brookmyre has a very individual style, which can take a while to get used to, but his ability to raise the tension never fails to engage, and his acerbic wit adds a quality dimension, to what is essentially an interesting crime story.
As with all first books in a new series, there is an element of getting to know all the characters, some are obviously in it for the long haul, whilst some peripheral characters may disappear without any further trace.
Overall, I thought that this first book was a promising start to a series which will develop over time. The potential for success is certainly apparent, and Brookmyres army of fans will not be disappointed in this new direction.
My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an e-copy in advance of publication.
As with all first books in a new series, there is an element of getting to know all the characters, some are obviously in it for the long haul, whilst some peripheral characters may disappear without any further trace.
Overall, I thought that this first book was a promising start to a series which will develop over time. The potential for success is certainly apparent, and Brookmyres army of fans will not be disappointed in this new direction.
My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for an e-copy in advance of publication.
December 26, 2012
After my first superb taste of Christopher Brookmyre in ‘All fun and games until someone loses an eye’, I decided to go back for more and try a sampling of his more serious, latest work. There seems to be some debate from regular Brookmyre fans as to whether his latest work has lost his original spark and hilarity that makes him such a unique author. I for one thought this was a great and clever book.
Crime novels have the danger of falling into the boring bracket. If there is no attachment to the main characters then the reader will soon lose interest. Brookmyre has no danger of this happening. His two female main characters, Catherine and Jasmine, are full of life, with realistic flaws and worries that we can identify with. His cast of ensemble characters compliment both of them and show their weaknesses, and makes them characters that you genuinely care about.
Brookmyre has two main plots following Catherine and Jasmine separately that start off running parallel to each other and then become more and more entwined. He is a genius at developing his story but still keeping you off track so you’re never quite sure where he will take you. He portrays Glasgow as though the underworld was on the back of his hand
After this novel I can firmly say that I enjoy Chris Brookmyre’s work as much as I did Christophers.
Crime novels have the danger of falling into the boring bracket. If there is no attachment to the main characters then the reader will soon lose interest. Brookmyre has no danger of this happening. His two female main characters, Catherine and Jasmine, are full of life, with realistic flaws and worries that we can identify with. His cast of ensemble characters compliment both of them and show their weaknesses, and makes them characters that you genuinely care about.
Brookmyre has two main plots following Catherine and Jasmine separately that start off running parallel to each other and then become more and more entwined. He is a genius at developing his story but still keeping you off track so you’re never quite sure where he will take you. He portrays Glasgow as though the underworld was on the back of his hand
After this novel I can firmly say that I enjoy Chris Brookmyre’s work as much as I did Christophers.
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