Complicity |
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Iain Banks
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Pages: 320 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0349105715
Pub: Abacus
Pub date: 1994-09-08
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 7312
Reader Reviews:
A Great Scottish Novel (0/0 people found this helpful)
Cameron Colley, journalist at a prominent Scottish newspaper, enjoys his drugs, his drink and his kinky affair with his friend's wife. Addicted to computer games and dreaming of wealth, he becomes prime suspect following a series of violent murders and has to try to prove his innocence.
Complicity is the closest that Banks has come to writing a 'conventional' thriller and is a taut and brutal novel. Some of the scenes of torture and sexual violence are uncomfortable reading, yet the novel sparkles with Banks's verbal style, energy, colourful characterisation and beautifully described locations and his fascination with technology and computer games.
The result is a highly original and hugely impressive novel which you can't put down, even on the third reading.
A cracking good read (0/0 people found this helpful)
The reader is dragged in by the throat to commit the opening sadistic murder in the second person: "You swing the cosh and hit him very hard across the back of the head." And there are more that "you" commit, interleaved with the egotistical concerns of Cameron Colley, smoking, boozing and snorting journo for an Edinburgh rag who is lured into a greater identification with the murders than he ever wanted with anything in his life - the 'complicity' of the title. As so often with Banks betrayal plays a major role: sexually, enacting wild fantasies with an old university pal's wife; and of his best friend, rooted in life-and-death childhood events that are only slowly revealed. And beyond this, our complicity and their betrayal can be seen in the way the world is run.
Particularly in the first half of the novel, when his imagination can roam free, Banks never writes a dull sentence, and throughout adds a twist of mystery to conversations and situations that lifts his writing above the average thriller.
I Liked It (0/0 people found this helpful)
It did take me a while to actually get into it, but once I did it was enjoyable.
It has made me curious about his other books.
A bit contrived (0/0 people found this helpful)
With a desperately unlikely plot that seems to be just a thin excuse for describing pornographically horrific murders with glee and relish, and a rather heavy-going and self-conscious polemic on what constitutes guilt and innocense in the modern world, I found this a contrived and awkward novel. Nonetheless, such is Banks' gift for the cliff-hanger and the page-turner, I read on regardless into the wee small hours. Probably not his best work, but still carved with a sharp, twisted and brilliant knife.
A good introduction to Iain Banks (0/1 people found this helpful)
This novel was indeed my introduction to Iain Banks. A page-turning rollercoaster of a book thick with twists of plot.
Much like all of Banks' novels that I have read, there was little to take away after reading this book, or make one want to keep hold of it to read again. However, for pure entertainment, it does the trick and is perfect as something undemanding to read on the way to work.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Crime, Thrillers & Mystery -> Mystery -> General AAS
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> B -> Banks, Iain
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> World -> Scottish
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General AAS
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover
Books -> Refinements -> Font Size (format_browse-bin) -> Regular Size