A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away [Import] [Paperback]

Christopher Brookmyre (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Warner; New Ed edition (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0751533254
• ISBN-13: 978-0751533255
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,967,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terribly Black Comedy, November 2, 2004

By 

Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (Paperback)

Christopher Brookmyre has taken a topic that has become present in the forefront of everyone's consciousness, presented a story in which he has managed to inject numerous humorous anecdotes and still been able to end up with a relevant reminder of how easily our lives may be touched by terrorism.

The title A BIG BOY DID IT AND RAN AWAY is reference to the way terrorists operate with the suggestion being that their acts of terror are nothing more than cowardly attacks by bullies who haven't got the guts to meet their enemies face to face.

The book starts out with a series of terrorist attacks that take place in various parts of the world and can all be attributed to a single man who is only known as the Black Spirit. Each of the attacks was simple yet untraceable and devastatingly effective resulting in the loss of many lives. The disturbing fact for the British Police Force is that the intelligence gathered by MI5 indicates that the Black Spirit's next attack is likely to occur somewhere on British soil.

Raymond Ash is a bored English teacher suffering the sleep deprivation that comes with living with a 3 month old baby with colic. One day while sitting in Aberdeen airport imagining what it might be like to just chuck it all in and jump on a plane out of there, he is startled to see his room-mate from his college days walking through the terminal. The reason for his surprise is that the guy had died in a plane crash 3 years ago. From this innocuous sighting, Raymond is about to have a very bad couple of days and a whole new appreciation of how fortunate he was to have led such a boring life.

The main storyline is set in Scotland with much of the dialogue spoken in Scottish slang for an authentic (although at times hard to understand) feel. We are slowly led towards the terrorist's target and the "against all odds" attempts by an unlikely bunch of "heroes" to avert a full on disaster. Along the way, Christopher Brookmyre has a habit of punctuating his story with a constant stream of asides, anecdotes, character introductions and histories. These interjections are both amusing and entertaining but they tended to break the flow of the story and occasionally made it a little hard to follow at times.

This minor inconvenience is offset by the enormous wealth of background information we get about each of the central characters. Whether it's an explanation on how a low-level marketing guy with a failed attempt at a rock career could become a deadly international terrorist or an interlude to reminisce about Raymond Ash's school days, Brookmyre has a flair for executing with an entertaining delivery. One thing's for sure, thanks to the plentiful supply of anecdotes throughout, we know all of the central characters inside and out. We care about them, we can identify with them and we can understand how they're feeling during the more stressful scenes. And believe me, towards the end of the book there are plenty of stressful moments.

When the finale takes place, it's inside a large complex and was rather reminiscent of some of the Matthew Reilly books that rely on action at all costs and a suspension of disbelief to ensure that a wild ride is had by all. It's a complete change to the way the first three quarters of the book was written, but it certainly entertained. One problem I had was in the convoluted description of the layout of the complex and where all the characters were in relation to one another. This part was crying out for an illustrated layout to be included a la Reilly or Clive Cussler.

For anyone who enjoys a humorous mystery that makes light of the more serious global concerns we face today, Christopher Brookmyre's A BIG BOY DID IT AND RAN AWAY is extremely satisfying. I have heard him compared to Carl Hiaasen both for his humour and his more serious underlying themes and I would have to agree with the comparison. A small warning about the extreme profane language used that may offend some readers.

3.0 out of 5 stars Carefully plotted, and very funny, but a little too long, February 5, 2009

By 

T. Burrows (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (Abacus Books) (Paperback)

I saw this author's stuff in bookshops in the UK - he is one of the top sellers there, but little known in the USA. What I got turned out to be a good subway book, a page turner that is a little smarter and a lot funnier than most. All in all, an enjoyable if not very enlightening read, and my only complaint is that, at 500 pages, it took up more of my time than it deserved.

Brookmyre, like my friend Tim Cockey, works the border between humor and mystery. His stuff is not quite funny enough to be hardcore humor, and it is a little too lite to be gripping suspense, but of course that is what he is trying to do, and it does work. I did find myself wondering who really is in control here - the clown or the master of suspense. Probably the clown - when he goees into burning sarcasm mode, he is as hot as anybody. But he takes his suspense very seriously, almost a little too seriously for a comic writer. The book is carefully plotted out, and rationales are provided for everything that happens. Practically every page has a cliffhanger on it.

The story centers on a college friendship that went awry. Raymond Ash and Simon Darcourt were flatmates and members of the same mediocre rock band, The Bacchae. Simon, a cold, manipulative egoist, always dreamed of stardom - but when this was denied to him, he became a leading international terrorist known as The Black Spirit. Raymond has recently had his first baby and entered the teaching profession. Raymond apparently spots Simon by chance in an airport, which is strange, because Simon is supposedly dead, perished in a bombed plane. In fact, he engineered the bombing himself. Raymond soon finds himself shot at, then kidnapped by a group of terrorists. I won't give away any more, but the book dips back into the past a lot, explaining Simon's motivations and past relations between Simon and Raymond. The ending is a little too much, and seems designed for Hollywood.

Brookmyre is a meticulouos plotter and a sarcastic humorist. Some sections are hysterically funny, like his description of a corporate workshop coach who gets people to make up raps about how they are going to help their companies - e.g. "Well here I am, my name is Je-re-mee / And my game is enhanced ee-fish-en-see / Sintek en-er-gee! / There for you and me!" etc. Simon kills him. All in all, an entertaining read, one written by an undeniably funny and careful craftsman.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for us nerds, April 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (Paperback)

This is great! I never tought I'd read a novel with so many references to computer games, and to think that I even have played ALL of them is insane! (Yes even the most obscure game, I've played it!) The story is also a great read if you don't know about games (I asked my wife what she thought) even tough you might miss out...

Gaming rules, and C. Brookmyre, if you're ever on Rubi-Ka, come see me as Agna, Biola or Thesau ;)