I don't often read the last book in a series first but this time I did, in pure ignorance, which made me immediately buy all 7 (yes, you read that - SEVEN) of Douglas Lindsay's hilarious and totally awesome Barney Thomson series.
Do you ever enjoy but get ever so slightly fed up with reading about the downtrodden, alcoholic P.I.? Have you ever had a déjà vu sensation when reading about the maverick ex cop pounding the sidewalks of New York, L.A. or Chicago? Is it only me who sighs when another vampire struggles with their lost soul whilst tracking down the baddy vampires? OK - are you with me?
Here, for your total entertainment is the antidote; meet Barney Thomson, barber extraordinaire, magnet to murders, the most unlucky man in Scotland.
Walk down any street in Scotland and you will pass, without even noticing, umpteen Barney Thomsons; that's how ordinary he is. If he was a colour, he'd be grey; if he was a vegetable, he'd be a potato and if he was a biscuit, he'd be a digestive (not McVitie's but the cheaper brand you buy at the co-op). That's how ordinary he is; a man who totally blends into his landscape like a fish supper on a Friday night.
Like many (all?) 40 something year old men, Barney feels that life has passed him by; the promise he had as a barber to the gods in his younger years has vanished and he has now been relegated to the humiliating third chair in the shop where he works, picking up the dregs of the customers who, through their own ignorance, end up victims at the end of Barney's scissors.
Men sit in the queue for hours to avoid the Barney treatment, causing him to become increasingly frustrated with the two younger and more popular barbers he works with who are also kings of the barber patter, a skill that Barney sadly lacks.
Eventually, over a game of dominoes, Barney admits to his drinking buddy that he would like to murder Wullie Henderson, the main 'gobshite' that he works with. An off the cuff remark, you may think? A man venting his frustrations over a pint? Who knows? Lindsay (the clever-Dick writer) spills the beans right at the beginning of the book by informing the reader that Wullie would soon be dead...so what's going on? Well, I'm not telling - read it yourself and find out.
The Barney Thomson series is a work of pure comedy genius; dark, dark, dark, very black comedy; Lindsay has a very off hand manner and gives flippant treatment to hacked off body parts, murder and blood, but he also gives such a brilliant commentary on contemporary Scottish life.
Lindsay must have been a squirrel in a previous life. He picks up on every aspect of mundane chatter, gossip and drivel that people talk and uses this rich seem of blethers to write such believable observations of ordinary life in such a comic and accurate manner that it is almost over-powering. Each sentence can be savored and enjoyed, read again and chuckled over whether it's the description of Barney's fear of using the hair dryer on his customers incase they might equate needing their hair dried artificially with homosexuality or the ridiculous nonsense spouted by Willie such as when he discusses that Marilyn Munro had 43 abortions.
Lindsay's writing isn't only comic noir - if that's not enough anyway. It's social commentary, it's about the hoplessness of people's lives as they battle with their disappointments and fears and it is dazzling, magnificently plotted crime writing.
I cannot praise Lindsay enough, writing just doesn't get any better.
