Product Description

Gavin is creating a unique 'holiday experience', every facility any tourist who hates abroad will ever want, will all be available on a converted North Sea oil rig. To test the facilities he's hosting a reunion for his old school (none of his ex-classmates can remember him, but what the heck, it's free). He is so busy showing off that he doesn't notice that another group have invited themselves along -- a collection of terrorist mercenaries who are occasionally of more danger to themselves than to the public. And they in turn are unaware that Inspector Mac Gregor has got wind of their activities. Within twenty-four hours Gavin's dream has blown to the four winds, along with a lot of other things. Fast, rabidly funny, and seriously over the top. And for the author's own view on his books visit his website at www.brookmyre.clara.net

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11915 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Christopher Brookmyre's One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night is a lethal farce in which nothing goes quite according to plan. The mercenaries and terrorists who seize an oil rig converted into an international resort are almost too busy wanting to kill each other to get on with the job, for one thing, and, for another, the group they take hostage are a high-school reunion rather than the conference of the internationally famous they are expecting. One of the high-school year went on to be a famous gangland hardman before reforming, and another is a darkly brilliant comic whose career is on the skids--and a couple more have spent far too much time in the cinema not to know what Bruce Willis would do... This is a splendidly constructed darkly funny novel in which the oddest things prove suddenly lethal and in which the imagined geography of a closed environment is at once a trap, and a playground for heroism, double cross and the sudden discovery of true love. The running gags and knowingness about movies ought to be less amusing than they are, but Brookmyre's underlying affection for ordinary people and contempt for bullies stops them being self-indulgent.

Review
'A high octane sense of the absurd' THE TIMES 'Tremendous fun' THE GUARDIAN 'The next star of the genre seems set to be Christopher Brookmyre' Mark Lawson 'Dark, violent and very funny.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'The premise is certainly implausable but Brookmyre has more than enough wit to pull it off.' SUNDAY TIMES 'There are enough twists and turns to satisfy the most expectant reader.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 'This novel is furiously paced and wonderfully absurd, with more one-liners than a Columbian coke dealer... Brookmyre has no equal.' MAXIM 'Christopher Brookmyre's One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night is a lethal farce in which nothing goes quite according to plan. The mercenaries and terrorists who seize an oil rig converted into an international resort are almost too busy wanting to kill each other to get on with the job, for one thing, and, for another, the group they take hostage are a high-school reunion rather than the conference of the internationally famous they are expecting. One of the high-school year went on to be a famous gangland hardman before reforming, and another is a darkly brilliant comic whose career is on the skids--and a couple more have spent far too much time in the cinema not to know what Bruce Willis would do... This is a splendidly constructed darkly funny novel in which the oddest things prove suddenly lethal and in which the imagined geography of a closed environment is at once a trap, and a playground for heroism, double cross and the sudden discovery of true love. The running gags and knowingness about movies ought to be less amusing than they are, but Brookmyre's underlying affection for ordinary people and contempt for bullies stops them being self-indulgent.' AMAZON.CO.UK

THE GUARDIAN
'Tremendous fun'

Customer Reviews

Hard to start - but then hard to stop!
It took me three goes to get into this, the first Chris Brookmyre book I have read. The violence of the first chapter took some getting used to, but once I was past that, the rest was brilliant! Any book that has me laughing out loud has to be good.

The characters are all well developed, and you even feel warmth for the bad guy until he kills an innocent man in cold blood.

I loved it and am about to buy more of his books.

Absolutely bloody brilliant!
I have read this book so many times that some of the pages are beginning to fall out!

Brookmyre's writing style is witty and clever, wonderfully bringing to life his characters and the situation they find themselves in. A school reunion on a converted oil rig goes disastrously wrong as a group of not-so-professional mercenaries try to take control of the rig. Despite the differences they once had on the playground, the now mature ex-students and their English teacher must band together to save themselves.

Featuring guns, bombs, rocket launchers and a laundry chute, this is one of the best books I have ever read.

Great modern Scottish fiction
In the midst of a shoot-out on an oil rig, Ally McQuade and his old English teacher Mrs Laurence commiserate about the awfulness of the school reading list and the tedious hours spent ploughing through Grassic Gibbon's "A Scots Quair". Readers educated in Scotland will sympathise. It's definitely time One Fine Day, a beautifully crafted novel from one of Scotland's best writers of modern fiction, made it onto the Higher lists instead.

Like Christopher Brookmyre's earlier books, this is a page-turner, with a satisfyingly tight plot. Brookmyre is accomplished enough in the thriller-fiction genre to play around with its cliches, and the reader's expectations, to hilarious effect. He does a lovely line in dry humour - though very occasionally, an overdose of authorial irony threatens to slip the tone into Terry Pratchett territory. Brookmyre's sharp wit comes over best through his glorious cast of Paisley-bred characters. All are recognisable, deftly drawn, and their dialogue begs to be read out loud. Has anybody bought the film rights yet?