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Pocket Notebook by Mike Thomas
Meet Jacob Smith. Your good old British policeman. The sort revered around the world. But Jacob’s not just a boring beat bobby – he’s a tactical firearms officer. A handsome, popular, financially secure specialist. Married, with two healthy, rounded, uninterested children. A connoisseur of fine cinema, who enjoys the occasional hit from his collection of do-it-yourself ‘art’ DVDs – the latest of which he ‘borrowed’ from a flat during a drugs warrant. An amateur historian, with a keen interest in the Vietnam War. And he does like to keep himself in shape, hence the rather large steroid habit – with the even larger amount of money he owes his dealer. And did we mention he’s partial to women’s feet? Which he doesn’t consider perverted in any way, oh no. And the girlfriend, his little Christmas treat to himself, who’s desperately trying to shrug him off now it’s the New Year? His supervisors, who are taking an increasing amount of notice in the way he conducts himself? Or what about his parents – do we really need to go there? As you can see, Jake’s a very busy boy. And his life is about to get a lot more complicated... Pocket Notebook is the debut novel from serving police officer Mike Thomas. An angry black comedy, it follows Jacob’s very public breakdown and subsequent fall from grace, all of which he meticulously records in his police notebook.
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
4 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Mike Thomas
5 books43 followersMike Thomas was born in Wales in 1971. For more than two decades he served in the police, working some of Cardiff’s busiest neighbourhoods in uniform, public order units, drugs teams and CID. He left the force in 2015 to write full time.
His debut novel, Pocket Notebook, was published by William Heinemann (Penguin Random House) and longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. The author was also named as one of Waterstones' 'New Voices' for 2010. His second novel, Ugly Bus, is currently in development for a six part television series with the BBC.
The first in the MacReady series, Ash and Bones, was published in August 2016 by Bonnier Zaffre. The sequel, Unforgivable, is published in July 2017.
He lives in the wilds of Portugal with his wife, two children and an unstable, futon-eating dog.
More details can be found on the website www.mikethomasauthor.co.uk
His debut novel, Pocket Notebook, was published by William Heinemann (Penguin Random House) and longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. The author was also named as one of Waterstones' 'New Voices' for 2010. His second novel, Ugly Bus, is currently in development for a six part television series with the BBC.
The first in the MacReady series, Ash and Bones, was published in August 2016 by Bonnier Zaffre. The sequel, Unforgivable, is published in July 2017.
He lives in the wilds of Portugal with his wife, two children and an unstable, futon-eating dog.
More details can be found on the website www.mikethomasauthor.co.uk
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 20, 2013
"Girl, look at that body. I, I work out. I'm sexy and I know it". Had this song in my head for the latter part of the book as it sums up PC Jacob Smith perfectly. He believes he's the best police officer ever, a brilliant husband and father and irresistible to women. He records all his thoughts on these matters in his notebook because he believes he needs to record the 'truth'. What is actually happening is a very public breakdown. Brilliant black comedy and hope this is not going to be the only book from this author
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June 26, 2021The author went to the same university as I did and this was recommended. I last read it... 10 years ago? And all I remember of it is a foot fetish. Which to be fair may not even be this book.
December 29, 2009
Jacob Smith, firearms officer, is dressed for an op:
"Today’s outfit:
Atlas Assault coveralls with Namex III flash-resistant fabric and Kevlar Reinforcement patches on the knees, elbow and groin; Damascus Imperial neoprene knee pads; Damascus Imperial ‘Hardshell’ elbow pads; 5.11 Tac-Ak Tactical Application gloves with Kevlar; spare Blackhawk Hellstorm Light Operations gloves; Lava Combat GTX boots; Web-Tex Cross-Draw Vest for cartridges and percussion grenades along with Maglite LED 4D cell torch, plasticuffs, Gerber multi-tool and normal kwik-cuffs in a Fobus cuff-case; 5.11 ‘Field Ops’ Sniper Watch; Viper 3-point rifle sling modified to hold my pump-action; Bianchi UM92 military holster for the Glock; Blackhawk Hellstorm Poly-Pro Tactical Balaclava; Bulldog customised ballistic body armour; Avon FM12 respirator coupled with an Anson Atlas flame retardant Avon respirator cover; Atlas ballistic helmet which offers ballistic and blunt trauma protection; Gorilla Bar for method of entry and a collapsible ‘Quickstep’ ladder, both strapped to my back.
All in black. I look cool as fuck. Imposing. Intimidating. A futuristic street-warrior. RoboJake, and you've got twenty seconds to comply. Only problem is I can barely move."
Jacob's immobilizing armour is not just physical. Nor just verbal, though he has an impressive (and funny) screen of collective nouns ("a Pointlessness of Police Community Support Officers"), nicknames ("I just referred to him as Seal Pup because all I wanted to do was club him to death") and assorted sardonic coinages: even in his nightmare of being executed, the relatives and friends in the viewing gallery have programme notes printed "Jacob Smith: Why Bother?"
Behind his obsessive body-building, fascination with Vietnam war films and computer games, sudden attachments to women who aren't his wife and automatic iconoclasm in the face of accepted propriety and procedure, Jacob is breaking up. His principal worry is that he is 38, but only his wife and best friend know why this matters, and neither can help him overcome the fear that he will become what he hates in his own past. But Jacob should really be worrying about more immediate matters, like the money he owes to some very ruthless people and the growing concern of his superiors about his work methods.
Mike Thomas is a serving police officer and this dark, fast, funny but often moving novel has an authenticity that could never have come from outside. It helps us to feel we're on the inside, with Jacob, as he tries to make sense of his life. Jacob is not, when we meet him, a nice man, or a good man, though the more he comes apart the more, paradoxically, we see glimpses of the good man he might have been. But he is always a compelling, pacy, funny, complex narrator and protagonist in whom we can't help being interested and who carries us along on a breakneck journey of disintegration, revelation and growing self-awareness. Despite his best efforts, I ended up fond of him, and I think many other readers will too.
"Today’s outfit:
Atlas Assault coveralls with Namex III flash-resistant fabric and Kevlar Reinforcement patches on the knees, elbow and groin; Damascus Imperial neoprene knee pads; Damascus Imperial ‘Hardshell’ elbow pads; 5.11 Tac-Ak Tactical Application gloves with Kevlar; spare Blackhawk Hellstorm Light Operations gloves; Lava Combat GTX boots; Web-Tex Cross-Draw Vest for cartridges and percussion grenades along with Maglite LED 4D cell torch, plasticuffs, Gerber multi-tool and normal kwik-cuffs in a Fobus cuff-case; 5.11 ‘Field Ops’ Sniper Watch; Viper 3-point rifle sling modified to hold my pump-action; Bianchi UM92 military holster for the Glock; Blackhawk Hellstorm Poly-Pro Tactical Balaclava; Bulldog customised ballistic body armour; Avon FM12 respirator coupled with an Anson Atlas flame retardant Avon respirator cover; Atlas ballistic helmet which offers ballistic and blunt trauma protection; Gorilla Bar for method of entry and a collapsible ‘Quickstep’ ladder, both strapped to my back.
All in black. I look cool as fuck. Imposing. Intimidating. A futuristic street-warrior. RoboJake, and you've got twenty seconds to comply. Only problem is I can barely move."
Jacob's immobilizing armour is not just physical. Nor just verbal, though he has an impressive (and funny) screen of collective nouns ("a Pointlessness of Police Community Support Officers"), nicknames ("I just referred to him as Seal Pup because all I wanted to do was club him to death") and assorted sardonic coinages: even in his nightmare of being executed, the relatives and friends in the viewing gallery have programme notes printed "Jacob Smith: Why Bother?"
Behind his obsessive body-building, fascination with Vietnam war films and computer games, sudden attachments to women who aren't his wife and automatic iconoclasm in the face of accepted propriety and procedure, Jacob is breaking up. His principal worry is that he is 38, but only his wife and best friend know why this matters, and neither can help him overcome the fear that he will become what he hates in his own past. But Jacob should really be worrying about more immediate matters, like the money he owes to some very ruthless people and the growing concern of his superiors about his work methods.
Mike Thomas is a serving police officer and this dark, fast, funny but often moving novel has an authenticity that could never have come from outside. It helps us to feel we're on the inside, with Jacob, as he tries to make sense of his life. Jacob is not, when we meet him, a nice man, or a good man, though the more he comes apart the more, paradoxically, we see glimpses of the good man he might have been. But he is always a compelling, pacy, funny, complex narrator and protagonist in whom we can't help being interested and who carries us along on a breakneck journey of disintegration, revelation and growing self-awareness. Despite his best efforts, I ended up fond of him, and I think many other readers will too.
September 14, 2015
Mike Thomas is a former police officer. He’s not the first ex-cop to turn his hand to writing, though most of his contemporaries either write biographies or turn to police procedurals. What both groups have in common is an often-rosy portrayal of the police. It is because Thomas appeared to promise the exact opposite which drew me to his books. Pocket Notebook, his first novel, comes with a recommendation from the Independent on the back cover. The book, the Independent says, will become cult reading in police circles but will certainly not be used as a training manual. The front cover certainly supports this assertion, introducing our protagonist, Jacob Smith, as a firearms officer, steroid abuser and foot fetishist.
So what did I find when I opened the book? Did it meet my expectations? Well kind of. While in some ways it exceeded them. The cover gives an idea of the book as a madcap combination of American Pycho and A Clockwork Orange, a version of John Niven’s Kill Your Friends perhaps, but set in the world of the boys and girls in blue, rather than the music biz of the 1990’s. It undoubtedly has elements of those three. For example late in the book there’s a hilarious scene where Smith is caught by his best friend, masturbating in the shoes of the best friend’s daughter, who he’s become obsessed with. But the novel is also richer than this. As with American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and Kill Your Friends, there has to be more than violence and outrageous sex or it’s just infantile. Behind the shock factor, Thomas’ book is a study of a man slowly losing his grip on his sanity; a portrait of what someone who’s defined by their job and status does when all that is stripped away.
A pocket Notebook is a good book; in some ways it’s an excellent novel, funny, riotous, at points sad and poignant. It’s written with an assuredness that is impressive in a debut. If I have one criticism, it is that it strays quite early on from its USP. One of its selling points is that Jacob Smith is a firearms officer; there’s a frisson that a man amidst a meltdown is carrying a Glock. But very early in the novel he’s stripped of that role and is thrown back on the beat and I felt that this cheated the reader somehow. On the whole though this is a minor quibble and I would unhesitatingly recommend this book.
So what did I find when I opened the book? Did it meet my expectations? Well kind of. While in some ways it exceeded them. The cover gives an idea of the book as a madcap combination of American Pycho and A Clockwork Orange, a version of John Niven’s Kill Your Friends perhaps, but set in the world of the boys and girls in blue, rather than the music biz of the 1990’s. It undoubtedly has elements of those three. For example late in the book there’s a hilarious scene where Smith is caught by his best friend, masturbating in the shoes of the best friend’s daughter, who he’s become obsessed with. But the novel is also richer than this. As with American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and Kill Your Friends, there has to be more than violence and outrageous sex or it’s just infantile. Behind the shock factor, Thomas’ book is a study of a man slowly losing his grip on his sanity; a portrait of what someone who’s defined by their job and status does when all that is stripped away.
A pocket Notebook is a good book; in some ways it’s an excellent novel, funny, riotous, at points sad and poignant. It’s written with an assuredness that is impressive in a debut. If I have one criticism, it is that it strays quite early on from its USP. One of its selling points is that Jacob Smith is a firearms officer; there’s a frisson that a man amidst a meltdown is carrying a Glock. But very early in the novel he’s stripped of that role and is thrown back on the beat and I felt that this cheated the reader somehow. On the whole though this is a minor quibble and I would unhesitatingly recommend this book.
April 22, 2011
Jacob Smith is a police firearms officer with a foundering marriage, a steroid addiction, and aggressive tendencies. Unable to save the victim of a car crash, Jake takes his frustrations out on a drunk he’s arrested for a public order offence, which is what first brings him to the attention of his senior officers. As time goes on, Jake faces growing pressure; he’s being investigated for his behaviour at work, his dealer wants paying, and Jake’s erratic personal life sees him lusting after at least three women other than his wife. Something has to give… and indeed it does.
Pocket Notebook is a simply stunning debut from Mike Thomas, himself a serving police officer. The rapid-fire narrative style captures superbly the whirlwind of thoughts inside Jake’s mind, painting the officer as a man constantly on edge. Thomas intersperses Jake’s narration with extracts from the regulation notebook in which he records his activities; this device creates an effective contrast between the chaotic energy of Jake’s thoughts and the more formal structure of the notebook – a structure occasionally (and increasingly) interrupted by reminders that Jake is not the fine upstanding copper he appears (or did at first) to the outside world.
Yet, for all that he may be an antihero, Jake is not an entirely unsympathetic character. We see that he does have admirable qualities, such as concern that some of the people he encounters don’t mess up their lives; it’s just that Jake is so far gone down the road he has taken that those qualities can’t hope to balance the darker aspects of his nature. And it is the latter that Thomas portrays so well as Jake loses his grip on reality, convinced all the while that what he does makes sense. Thomas draws the reader so fully into his protagonist’s mindset that it takes a while to adjust after leaving Jake’s side. Pocket Notebook marks Mike Thomas out as a major new voice whose work deserves our attention.
This review also appears on Fiction Uncovered.
Pocket Notebook is a simply stunning debut from Mike Thomas, himself a serving police officer. The rapid-fire narrative style captures superbly the whirlwind of thoughts inside Jake’s mind, painting the officer as a man constantly on edge. Thomas intersperses Jake’s narration with extracts from the regulation notebook in which he records his activities; this device creates an effective contrast between the chaotic energy of Jake’s thoughts and the more formal structure of the notebook – a structure occasionally (and increasingly) interrupted by reminders that Jake is not the fine upstanding copper he appears (or did at first) to the outside world.
Yet, for all that he may be an antihero, Jake is not an entirely unsympathetic character. We see that he does have admirable qualities, such as concern that some of the people he encounters don’t mess up their lives; it’s just that Jake is so far gone down the road he has taken that those qualities can’t hope to balance the darker aspects of his nature. And it is the latter that Thomas portrays so well as Jake loses his grip on reality, convinced all the while that what he does makes sense. Thomas draws the reader so fully into his protagonist’s mindset that it takes a while to adjust after leaving Jake’s side. Pocket Notebook marks Mike Thomas out as a major new voice whose work deserves our attention.
This review also appears on Fiction Uncovered.
February 10, 2010
Pocket Notebook tells the story of Jacob Smith, a hunky, muscular, macho firearms police officer. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Jacob seems to be getting slightly unhinged...
Written by a current police officer, the book is infused with enough vocabulary, atmosphere, and a sense of realism to be rivetting purely on the merits of the convincing and compelling world it introduces us to. On top of that, it is a strangely addictive, angry story, mesmerizing in all the ways that watching footage of the Hindenburg is mesmerizing.
The story is told in the first person, and every now and again we get glimpses of the notebook that Jake writes in. These are not pretty glimpses - throughout the novel, Jake trusts his notebook with more honesty and self-revelation than he trusts any of the people in his life. In many ways, it is Jake's diminishing ability to connect with other people that drives the novel. Sometimes, this inability to connect seems to almost reach out of the page, all the way to the reader - even though we're in Jake's head, it often feels like he is holding back from the reader, and himself.
While the writing and the world are engrossing, our hero can be difficult to spend time with. There is good reason why the cover visually echoes Clockwork Orange - this is a dark, out of control, sometimes quite vicious character to be around, and he may well be beyond redemption for some readers. On the other hand, it is a book that stands out in many ways, never in danger of being bland or bog-standard.
Definitely worth a read. As they say in every movie trailer ever made, this story is "something you have never seen before". And that on its own is an impressive achievement.
Written by a current police officer, the book is infused with enough vocabulary, atmosphere, and a sense of realism to be rivetting purely on the merits of the convincing and compelling world it introduces us to. On top of that, it is a strangely addictive, angry story, mesmerizing in all the ways that watching footage of the Hindenburg is mesmerizing.
The story is told in the first person, and every now and again we get glimpses of the notebook that Jake writes in. These are not pretty glimpses - throughout the novel, Jake trusts his notebook with more honesty and self-revelation than he trusts any of the people in his life. In many ways, it is Jake's diminishing ability to connect with other people that drives the novel. Sometimes, this inability to connect seems to almost reach out of the page, all the way to the reader - even though we're in Jake's head, it often feels like he is holding back from the reader, and himself.
While the writing and the world are engrossing, our hero can be difficult to spend time with. There is good reason why the cover visually echoes Clockwork Orange - this is a dark, out of control, sometimes quite vicious character to be around, and he may well be beyond redemption for some readers. On the other hand, it is a book that stands out in many ways, never in danger of being bland or bog-standard.
Definitely worth a read. As they say in every movie trailer ever made, this story is "something you have never seen before". And that on its own is an impressive achievement.
July 30, 2012
For some reason I found this book hard to start. I would read a page or two, then set it down for a week or more. But once I got some momentum behind me, I couldn't put it down, and I for the first time I found myself having a very physical reaction to some sections, literally squirming in my seat and cringing as I read certain sections. All in all, a highly entertaining, if very disturbing read that I would highly recommend.
January 1, 2014
I really enjoyed this book, the dark humour is really right up my alley.
Jacob's descent into madness and his self destructive tendencies are told beautifully, and gripped me throughout.
I will definitely be getting the author's latest work as soon as it is released.
Jacob's descent into madness and his self destructive tendencies are told beautifully, and gripped me throughout.
I will definitely be getting the author's latest work as soon as it is released.
January 29, 2012
very very dark.
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September 5, 2017Well my copper mate likes it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews