Customer Reviews

The Killing Joke

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Just like half the fun in a joke is in sharing it with others, I would also recommend and lend this book to my friends. This is probably the funniest thriller I've read. It's craftily written ("We're being attacked by stereotypes!") and doesn't bore one bit. The book starts and ends like a joke, and it follows the path of our protagonist Guy Fletcher who embarks on a mission of searching a sick joke to its origins. In the process, various jokes come to life as they try to make his quest more difficult and he gets chased by an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, an army of nuns, posses of Jews, blacks and homosexuals, finds a fly in his soup, sees a blind man riding a bicycle etc. Ultimately, the riddle "why did the chicken cross the road" leads him to his final destination. There's a love angle thrown in, but it never becomes overbearing so as to lose the focus of the book. A great read!

Anthony Horowitz is a great suspense writer, and he is also very good at making things funny. But The Killing Joke is not Alex Rider. It's more like a quirky James Bond/conspiracy thriller with a lot language and sexual content thrown in for effect.

We're introduced to Guy Fletcher, an actor presently out of work. One evening he goes into a bar and hears a particular joke and decides to track it down until he finds it's origin. This leads to his fantastical adventures that lead him across England. There's more to the story, but that's all you need to know for now.

I've read most of Horowitz's children's' books, like the Alex Rider series, the Gate Keepers series, as well as Groosham Grange. All of the books were very good. Not that they're flawless, particularly Groosham Grange, but all were enjoyable and interesting. The Killing Joke is written very much like Horowitz's other books. Here we have interesting characters, a good plot, an easy writing style, and definite originality. As literature, The Killing Joke can be read at any age. It's something a twelve-year-old could enjoy.

But the frequent strong language and strong sexual content make this book not worth it. The language, I feel, was unnecessary and added nothing to who there characters were. The sexual content, as well, seemed stupid and out of place. I'll get into more detail later when I talk about the characters.

I'll continue with the aspects of The Killing Joke that I didn't like. First of all is the pacing. It is consistent, but very slow. A lot of time is spent on back-story, and wandering around the countryside following the joke. For some reason, it felt forced, as if Hororwitz didn't have material to make a descent sized book.

This leads me to the story, or the plot. In truth, there really isn't a story. The Killing Joke is based on a concept rather than a plot or characters. Albeit, it's a great concept, but I don't think it's enough to hold an entire book. I think it would be better suited for a novella or short story.

Even if the story doesn't work, strong characters can still hold up a book... and this is something The Killing Joke has in short supply. The only character that is developed at all is Guy Fletcher. I found him to be a fun person to follow, and someone I had no trouble rooting for. Other than Guy, though, the other characters were flat and seemed more like placeholders rather than real people. There seemed no real point to Sally. There's never any explanation as to why she even likes Guy. Removing the romantic subplot would have helped with the levels of sexual content, and the general welfare of the book. Alas...

In truth, there were a lot of pointless things that existed and happened. There is no explanation as to why certain things occurred, like armies of stereotypes following Guy, and what is the point of having Sally have an enormously fat mother, among other things? All of these things do nothing to further the plot or characters, only the concept. Even then it's sometimes questionable.

Now, it may seem as if I hate every aspect of this book, but I don't. There are a couple of things that made The Killing Joke readable. The first is Horowitz's writing style. He is a very good writer. He utilizes numerous writing quirks to effectively create a strange and humorous atmosphere. And as I said before, the concept is very imaginative and original. I like it a lot. Also, Horowitz combines plentiful clichéd elements and uses them to his advantage, which is clever, and some thing I really enjoy. And much of the book is downright funny.

Over all, The Killing Joke is readable, but nothing more. Most of the characters are flat, the plot drags, and the concept would be happier in a short story. Not to mention the amount of language and sexual content and pointless situations. While there are good aspects, they do not outweigh the bad.

Because of this, I do not recommend you read The Killing Joke.

How would you feel if you overheard a bloke in a bar telling a joke featuring your own mother? This is exactly what happens to Guy Fletcher when he visits his local pub. To be fair, the mother is the much loved actress Selina Moore and no-one actually knows that Guy is her son. Completely flabbergasted by the rudeness of the joke, Guy decides to track down its origin. Indeed, his life is already down the drain, so who cares what kind of silly things he gets up to. Not only will he fall in love during his quest, he will also find out that not all jokes are created just for fun. Yes, he will soon discover that there really exists an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman.

Good ideas are not always guarantee to great stories and The Killing Joke sadly turns out to be one big proof of this rule. Although Antony Horowitz masterly succeeds in creating the perfect intro to a hilarious yarn, it does not take long before the story gets to a point where you've been before and starts repeating the same gimmicks. After a few chapters it is overly clear that the world of Guy has been turned into one big joke and the reader has no need in getting that obvious fact repeated over and over. The only reason why I kept reading on was that I still had some hope for a big conclusion, with -if allowed- a surprise ending. True, the denouement is rather surprising, but only in the way that it is in the race for most stupid and annoying ending of a novel ever. I would have fallen asleep, if it wasn't for the annoyance I felt after finishing this book.

This book is a joke (no pun intended).

Although this isn't the greatest novel ever written it is definitely a very unique and enjoyable read. Original ideas for novels are very few and far between these days so accolades have to be given to Anthony Horowitz for an outstanding effort idea wise. The book does drag on a bit in parts though especially encounters with characters you know are never going to come up again in the book as Guy chases the origin of the distasteful joke which the author goes on with in lengthy details. Still it is an interesting book and one I think most people would enjoy.

The basic plot of the book is Guy Fletcher, an actor who has very limited work and does not look like ever getting the big break goes to a seedy bar to get drunk and forget his troubles. He overhears a distasteful joke about his recently departed famous mother and comes off second best when he confronts the teller. With no hope of getting an acting part until his face heals he sets off to track down the thugs who were telling the joke, not for retribution but to find out who made up the joke as he knows the thugs would not have the intelligence to think it up themselves. His search takes him across England and it is not long before he starts to hit dead ends. As he returns to his life in London stereotypical comedy things start to happen to him such as a fly in his soup, a train station full of nuns, almost getting run over by a steamroller and being stalked by an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, all to warn him off his pursuit. Soon as dead bodies start turning up he knows he will have to commit 100 percent to finding the source of the joke or he'll end up in jail or dead.

Other great thriller adventure books revolving around stand up comedy lines are Dan Barton's masterpieces Killer Material and Heckler.