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Angelique is tiny Asian female police officer in Glasgow. In her last assignment, bullets bounced off her, she more or less saved the world, and her superiors are still pondering how to reprimand her off-the-cuff cowboy behavior. Of course, she's the one called in when a troupe of clowns dance down the street and into the bank ("It must be a McDonald's promotion," remarks a shopper.) to take everyone inside hostage. And she's willing to infiltrate the bank because that's better than visiting her parents on her thirtieth birthday and being asked if she's seeing anyone nice. This being a Brookmyre book, the bank robbers are mostly pacifists, and they defeat the crowds of police ringing the building by dumping quantities of itching powder from the rooftop. The lovable lead larcenist has an objective in mind more valuable than the contents of the bank vault, and on his way to it he compels the slimy young bank manager to treat his employees with more dignity. As the police try to second-guess the motives and next moves of the baffling bank robbers, other colorful bad guys appear. A bunch of Mafia types, currently headquartered in British Columbia, are led by the not quite ready for prime time son of the founder, who got all the bad guys into this unlikely mess. An assassin content to lurk in a backwater Mexican town objects to being sent to Glasgow to provide on-site management (You're going to be our ambassador. Yeah, sounds like an honor. It is an honor; haven't you ever wanted to visit Europe? Scotland's in Europe? Of course, where did you think it is? I dunno, never thought about it before.), but he finds that capitalism exists everywhere. There are also soccer fans for opposing teams willing to start a riot while captives in a bank heist, buskers with business sense, clever artists, and a tangle of a story line that no one will figure out before the author chooses to unravel it for us. This is the sort of book that is tremendously funny for someone who doesn't mind being grossed out periodically. This being a Brookmyre, there's also a gigantic keech involved, but that would be giving away the plot.
Reviewed by Joy Matkowski, October 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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