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Colin Bateman
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Book
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ISBN | 978-075534675 | ||
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Reviewer
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Gareth
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Synopsis
A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the comic crime caper. He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It's not as if there's any danger involved. It's an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road, will surely be impressed. Except she's not -- because she can see the bigger picture. And when they break into the shuttered shop next door on a dare, they have their answer. Suddenly they're catapulted along a murder trail which leads them from small-time publishing to Nazi concentration camps and serial killers..
Review
A deft and funny read - a simple tale of mistaken identity taken to epic proportions. A witty and insightful read on the foibles of working in a bookshop (from the agony of not stocking enough James Patterson, to the John Grisham impersonator and the plight of the desperate browsers...), this is in parts a detective novel and black comedy / farce. Bateman manages to skate on the thin ice that separates these two genres in a delightful way.
If you like your detective thrillers stirred and not shaken, with a comic twist then Mystery Man is for you.
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