Product Description

It was a junket, a freebie. A 'team-building' weekend in the highlands for lawyers, advertising execs, businessmen, even the head of a charity. Oh, and a journalist, specially solicited for his renowned and voluble scepticism - Jack Parlabane. Amid the flying paintballs and flowing Shiraz even the most cynical admit the organisers have pulled some surprises - stalkers in the forest, power cuts in the night, mass mobile phone thefts, disappearing staff, disappearing guests: there's nothing can bring out people's hidden strengths or break down inter-personal barriers quite like not having a clue what's going on and being scared out of your wits. However, when the only vehicular access for thirty miles is cut off it seems that events are being orchestrated not just for pleasure ...And that's before they find the first body. Thereafter, 'finding out who your colleagues really are' is not so much an end product as the key to reaching Monday morning alive. Visit the author's website at www.brookmyre.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #269666 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
By now, readers know what to expect from the remarkable Mr Brookmyre, and Be My Enemy has all the hallmarks of his caustic wit. The protagonist of his earlier books, the wry Jack Parlabane, makes a welcome reappearance, faced with an intriguing professional problem: he is to take part in a weekend of "corporate teambuilding" in the comfortable surroundings of a secluded estate. But quite what sort of course is this? Jack's instincts as a no-holds-barred hack, skilled at uncovering unpalatable truths, warn him that something unusual is in the offing--but he's not quite prepared for the extremely dangerous sideshow that is to accompany the corporate makeovers.

This is wonderfully abrasive stuff, full of the scabrous insights that we read Brookmyre for, and it's good to see ideas shoehorned into the satirically biting prose; while never neglecting the crucial task of keeping us turning those pages, Brookmyre makes some sharp points here; one of them being that we all harbour certain fascist tendencies, stifling a desire to put paid to those who go against us. The Highland country house in Be My Enemy functions as a hot house in which certain ideas along these lines can be explored--and Brookmyre's conclusions are just as likely to upset politically correct leftwingers as they are to ruffle the feathers of staunch conservatives. But don't get the idea that this is any kind of a tract: Brookmyre is a man who knows that ideas in novels must always be at the service of the narrative and that's very much the case here. Jack Parlabane's one-liners are as spot-on as ever, and the juggling of violence and black humour is as precisely judged as we expect from this writer. --Barry Forshaw

Review
'Sharply satirical and poignantly funny, this is a gripping and highly entertaining read' Time Out 'Chris Brookmyre is a genius' Mirror 'Brookmyre has no equal' Maxim 'Brookmyre is a brilliant satirist...an absolute must read' Punch 'Exhilarating linguistic fluency and keenly subversive intelligence' Scotland on Sunday

THE LIST
'A spot-on, laugh-out-loud send-up of the blandness of corporate language. A real pleasure.'

Customer Reviews

Minor Brookmyre
Christopher Brookmyre is a remarkable writer: creating thoroughly entertaining novels that combine the plot of a fast paced thriller with black comedy, graphic violence and left-wing ranting. I am a big fan of his work and while 'Be My Enemy' is an entertaining book it is not one of his best.

It is another outing for recurring character, journalist and cynic Jack Parlabane as he attends a team building weekend with a twist. This is not a true Parlabane novel, although he is a significant character this is more an ensemble piece with a host of new characters introduced. On one level this is a good thing, Parlabane was never my favourite Brookmyre character and I was starting to tire of him. However, this approach does entail introducing a lot of new characters very quickly - Brookmyre does this with mixed success - some of the cast quickly form into interesting characters but others never really rise above cliché. The other problem with the book is that one of the central themes, political attitudes changing with age, is not entirely successful.

Despite my issues with the book, I still really enjoyed it. It is an easy read and would make a good book to read on holiday.

Not THAT bad
Jack Parlabane returns to confront Highland Country Hotel slaughter (no reference to Mrs P's maiden name). With Tim Vale in tow Parlabane is invited to participate in a management/team-building weekend. After a surprisingly positive start the weekend descends into chaos. An extreme right-wing group of psychopaths and human-safari hunters attempts to turn the Hotel into a slaughter house leaving Vale and to a lesser extent Parlabane and Co. to fight for their lives.

Vale is a marvellously wrought character with support from the familiar Parlabane. Here Brookmyre fleshes Vale out a little without exploding the enjoyable mystery of the gentleman-agent. The plot twists unexpectedly in places and there is the odd bit of evil ingenuity from vale and Parlabane. Brookmyre leads us by the hand a little at the start, recounting some of Parlanbane's previous adventures in a manner that has clearly irritated some of the other reviewers. I'd suspect this introductory material is at the behest of agent/publisher. Nevertheless, the book contains much originality and many of the supposed resemblances to "One Fine Day" are superficial or can be forgiven. I've re-read Be my Enemy once already and would argue the gems it contains clearly outweigh the disappointments. Hard to decide on whether this is a 4/5 or 3/5. I've gone with 3/5 because ultimately it doesn't rank with "One Fine Day" or "A Big Boy Did it" (to which it is most comparable).

Brookmyre is own enemy as KillBill meets Monarch of the Glen
"Be my enemy" or to give it it's proper title, in keeping with the modern parlance parahphrases that characterise Brookmyre's novel's, "F*@! this for a game of soldiers", was a dissapointment. A dissapointment that I read in one sitting from cover to cover, while the clock brought the next day inevitably closer and the sleep seperating what was quickly threatening to become a 48 hour day ever shorter. So how can a novel that holds the attention be anything less than spine tingling and invogorating?

In short maybe it's just my personal tastes, I recently read that Brookmyre disliked the supposedly central character Jack Parlabane and had so previously punished him by sending him to jail and having someone else sleep with his wife, I think he punishes him more here by keeping him on the periphery of this novel. While essentially we have learned the extent of Parlabane's past through previous novels of Brookmyre's (of which I must add I own the complete back catalogue - in some way quantifying my views on this effort), I for one felt this was missing here. Despite the exhaustion of the topic previously I felt it's absence meant that the sardonic and rapier wit elements of Parlabane's character were omitted and so a main stay character was essentially a bit part player. Granted we centered more about Timothy Vale (previously featuring in "One Fine Day..." - I think! Hard core Brookmyre-ites must forgive me if I get this wrong) but this use of an already established character enhanced the interlinking of Brookmyre's books that personally I find incredible - the interjoined world in his head is like his Trumpton, but "Be my enemy" seems like a catalogue of cross references to his previous works rather than anything essentially new.

Perhaps it was because it was outwith my frame of reference and occured in a setting akin to the Glenbogle estate, rather than the more homely settings to me of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Maybe I missed the presence of Sarah Parlabane to complement her husbands sarcasm or perhaps it was the absence of the now obligatory reference to St Mirren, but I think it was probably the lack of information on the bad guys - despite all this I may have been forming my opinions when I would have been better sleeping - perhaps after all it is only Jack Bauer that can function on so little sleep.

Brookmyre faced criticsm over his previous novel "The Sacred Art of Stealing" for writing essentially a love story and deviating from his mainstay's of violence and gore - was he mellowing with the birth of his child? He also faced criticism over the length of his previous offering in comparison to it's predeccesors. While here we see the return to blood and gore - making Kill Bill look like a 12-certificate, the ending feels rushed as the novel concludes in the last 50 pages of 390. More time might have been given over to this rather than feeling like he was being pushed into meeting a publication date.

His recent article also highlighted how he writes faster as he nears the end of a novel and becomes more deeply immersed in it -perhaps he should try and take his time as he nears the end next time.

3*'s means I didn't enjoy it as much as other Brookmyre novels on first reading, but as with all others I will return to it - and as has been the case with some others I may pull more from it at the second reading. I do though urge you to read it to form your own opinion.