Product Description

If society has the B-list celebrities it deserves, it now has a killer to match. Except that Simon Darcourt is a great deal more successful in his career choice than the average talent show contestant. He's also got the media taped - by the simple expedient of by-passing them completely and posting real-time coverage of his killings on the internet. He's got viewing figures to make the world's TV executives gasp in envy, and he's pulling the voyeuristic strings of every viewer by getting them to 'vote' to keep his captives alive. Angelique De Xavier, his previous nemesis, is drafted onto the police team trying to bring this one-man celebrity hate-fest to an end. But she can't do it alone, she needs the magical skills of her lover, only she doesn't know where Zal is and meanwhile a whole load of celebs are, literarly, dying to be famous. An intelligent satire, a thriller with exhilarating pace - Christopher Brookmyre at his best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3781 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
Christopher Brookmyre was a journalist before becoming a full time novelist. He is the winner of the 2007 Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award, and his novel All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye won the 2006 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award for Comic Fiction.

Customer Reviews

Another cracker from Scotland's best not-so-well-kept secret
So let's consider the facts, familiar characters (from at least 3 different previous books), familiar unapologetic in-your-face style, typical west of Scotland sense of humour...so, you have to ask, is it all going to start getting a bit boring?...answer, not a snowball's chance in hell (sorry about that!).

After waiting patiently over the last few months for my next Brookmyre fix, I polished off 'Snowball in Hell' in two mesmeric sittings. As always, I found myself laughing out loud throughout the novel at Brookmyre's depiction of Scottish humour and attitudes. If there is another writer out there doing what he does better, I have yet to come across him/her. While this ability to make people laugh is undoubtedly a key to Brookmyre's success, his ability to tell a story and seduce the reader into suspending their disbelief and losing themselve in the plot is what keeps me and i'm sure many others coming back for more.

Snowball sees the return of Simon Dacourt, Brookmyre's resident ego-maniacal mercenary terrorist. Again, the fate of Dacourt is tied to the success of the book's heroine, Angelique de Xavier, Glesga Polis' posterchild for equal opportunities given her ugandan/glasweigan heritage. Xavier has aged both physically and emotionally since thwarting Dacourt's last terrorist outing, years which have added even more venom and cynicism to her professional posterier. Brookmyre does a much better job though of revealing a softer side to the character, making her a much more multi-dimensional and, for it, likeable heroine. Her relationship with Zal, he of The Sacred Art of Stealing fame, flits seasmlessy from centre stage to background issue as Dacourt's latest venture, turning the world of celebrity on its head by executing z-list celebs on tv, leaves her with excruciating life or death decisions and contemplating the road her life has taken.

The story pops and fizzes as usual with the now trademark twists and turns that keep the reader guessing, although never to the point where it becomes anything less than engrossing.

After two sittings, I once again find myself despondent that I am going to have to wait so long for my next Brookmyre fix. I urge you, if you have never had the pleasure of losing yourself in one of his novels, to take the plunge! I can almost guarantee you won't regret it.

An Acerbic, Exhilharating Tour De Force
One of the three main characters in this book is the sleight of hand specialist, Zal Innez who previously appeared in the excellent `The Sacred Art of Stealing' alongside policewoman Angelique De Xavia. His stagecraft is a metaphor for this book insofar as NOTHING is as it seems and author Christopher Brookmyre stuns us regularly throughout with a whole series of brilliant set-pieces of misdirection.

Here, Angelique relocates and recruits Zal to help her capture arch-baddie Simon Darcourt (who previously appeared in `A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away, together with Angelique). Zal and Angelique put their unresolved love affair on hold as they pursue Darcourt, who is capturing celebrity after celebrity and killing them in his own bizarre version of a reality TV show. She also has a special vested interest in apprehending him that I won't give away.

Halfway through this book I actually thought Christopher was trowelling on the satire too heavily, taking pot shots at too many easy targets: crap racist 70s comedians, gold-digging WAGS, reality TV, manufactured teen bands, splenetic right wing newspaper columnists. And some of these had already been covered by Ben Elton in `Dead Famous' and `Chart Throb'. But I have to say I was then bowled over by an excellent bit of misdirection - pure Jeffrey Deaver in execution - and was later actually punching the air and grinning from ear to ear at the audacity of later examples of his legerdemain.

It goes without saying that there are several hilarious passages, and that Christopher is 1000% more caustic than Ben Elton, or the other writer he's often compared to, Florida's own moral guardian, the great Carl Hiaasen.

`A Snowball in Hell' is a high-octane mix of thriller, satire... and love story, the latter proving that CB has a heart beneath his curmudgeonly exterior. It is also quite superb and right up there with the very best of his books. And as I mentioned earlier, the plot twists are breath-takingly good.

Recommended highly to all lovers of crime thrillers, satire, humour, and indeed anyone in general who likes a good read. However, one word of warning: you don't necessarily have to have read either of the two CB titles I mentioned above, but I recommend you do otherwise you may find the first 20-30 pages, and a few later plot references, a touch difficult to follow.

A killer with ratings!

With "A Snowball in Hell" (I do recommend you read "A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away" and "The Sacred Art of Stealing" before this one) Brookmyre is again his sharp funny self with a very dark side. Simon Darcourt is a celebrity killer in more ways than one. First he enjoys murdering famous people, especially ones who have no talent or reason for being famous. But he has become a celebrity in his own right via his posting real time video of his killings and to make things really interesting he lets visitors to his site vote on wether the victim lives or dies. This makes for some wonderfully black humor. Darcourt's website is getting more hits than Google and he is more famous then the last winner of American Idol. It is again up to Angelique De Xavier to try and bring Darcourt to justice. This is a deliciously funny and dark read that I highly recommend. Best thriller I have read since "A Tourist in the Yucatan!"