Want You Gone by Chris Brookmyre - Book Review

I'm a little late to the Chris Brookmyre party and had no idea that he had written so many crime novels. However, at the Partners in Crime event in Derby, his name came up as being one of Scotland's top crime writers and his novel Black Widow won the Scottish crime book of the year in 2016. As I like a bit of Tartan Noir, I thought it would be good to check him out.

I was not disappointed, despite the fact that I read Want You Gone, book 8 of the Jack Parlabane series, gifted to me recently by my husband.

The story is about a hacker (Sam) who is blackmailed into doing some serious shit that could land her in prison. This would be a big problem, as she is caring for her younger sister Lilly while their mother is in prison and there is no father on the scene. Sam realises she could be out of her depth and in turn, blackmails Jack, a journalist, to help her. What follows is an exciting and tense tale focussed on cybercrime and industrial espionage that keeps you hooked and turning the pages.

Although it might be safe to assume that Jack is the main character in this book, I loved the young, female hacker character of Sam and felt this story was more about her. It felt like Jack was her sidekick. In her real life, she comes across as slightly nervous, shy and not terribly assertive, but it's a different story when she is online. In some ways, I would describe this book as a coming of age story, but done in a very different way as Sam learns to incorporate some of the positives from her online personae into her everyday personality and grows up a little. I enjoyed the relationship and dialogue between Jack and Sam, as well as the portrayal of the old-school journalist, meets young high-tech hacker and how those two worlds collide.

My favourite part of the book was the break-in where Jack has to rely on Sam's online and telephone guidance and Sam on him delivering the goods. I found this to be a particularly tense part, hard to put down and it is a proper thrill ride.

If anything I liked the start and middle of the book better than the ending. It all wrapped up very nicely and perhaps I'm just not a fan of the tidy end, but this did not deter me from enjoying it overall. I also got a good insight into hacking and some things to be careful about when being online including not to be taken in by those who sound entirely credible and confident!

Although this was part of a series, it felt like a stand-alone book and I didn't feel I'd missed anything from not reading the earlier books.

I'd rate this 4/5 and would like to read more of Brookmyre, particularly Black Widow.

If you want to find out more about Chris Brookmyre and the novels he has written, including what looks to be a science fiction crime novel called Places in the Darkness, here's a link to his site:

www.brookmyre.co.uk

If you're interested in reading it, you can find the book here on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Want-Gone-Jack-Parlabane-Book-ebook

And for those of you following my non-book buying escapades this year, I can confirm this one was a gift. Thank you Andy.