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Friday 25 October 2013

Mystery Review: 'Hit And Run' by Doug Johnstone

You’d think it would be hard to mess up a book like this. Three kids are driving home from a night out, off their heads on booze and pills, when their car hits a pedestrian on a quiet road. They drag the body into the undergrowth and drive home. Great premise, right? Will they get caught? The twist is that the car driver is the cub reporter for the local paper, assigned to report on the death of what turns out to be a notorious local gang leader. Exciting stuff. Or maybe it would be if said cub reporter wasn’t the stupidest person on the planet, stuffing himself with every drug known to man (or his doctor brother, in this case), behaving in insane ways and taking ludicrous amounts of physical damage yet still going out and single-handedly... No, I can’t even write it. And of course the widow gets the hots for him, and don’t even mention the ending.

This is one of those oddities that had me rolling my eyes so fast I couldn’t see straight. I simply can’t summon the enthusiasm to write a proper review. I suppose it appeals to a certain type of reader. However, for me, a book needs to have characters who a) actually share some passing resemblance to, you know, actual people, not just wish-fulfilment; and b) behave in realistic, or at least believable, ways. And no, saying the guy’s had a bump on the head isn’t sufficient explanation for the dumbass things he does. If you like pseudo-noir set in Edinburgh and you can overlook the beyond-incredible plot, you might like this. I finished it, skimming the last quarter, so two stars for that. And the dog was sorta cute (in a pointless way).

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