Booklog
A snowball in hell. Christopher Brookmyre, 2008: published Abacus, 2009.

Brookmyre returning to form, a bit. I was quite unimpressed by Unsinkable Rubber Ducks; the plot was a bit thin and he went overboard on the editorialising. Here, the editorialising is still present, but it's less annoying, and we return to the conventional Brookmyre plot of "an utterly implausible high-profile surrealist terrorist campaign"; a serial killer trying to murder vapid celebrities. No Jack Parlabane, which usually bodes well, and we get the characters from Sacred Art of Stealing back.

It's a little too high-profile & ludicrous for my liking - live televised assassinations and a phone-in to choose the next victim? - but it's good to see him beginning to get back to what we wanted.

This week's list, otherwise, is implausibly long:

• The great crash : 1929 - J. K. Galbraith
  
• The pope's elephant - Silvio A. Bedini
  
• Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
  
• Ecclesiastical history of the English people - The Venerable Bede*
  
• The Russian revolution : a very short introduction - S. A. Smith
  
• Anarchism : a very short introduction - Colin Ward
  
• A tenured professor - J. K. Galbraith
  
• Y: the descent of men - Steve Jones
  
• Thief of time - Terry Pratchett
  
• The complete McAuslan - George MacDonald Fraser
  
• Ingenious pursuits : building the scientific revolution - Lisa Jardine
  
• The fifth elephant - Terry Pratchett
  
• One fine day in the middle of the night - Christopher Brookmyre
  
• Bad monkeys - Matt Ruff