All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye - 1st Edition/1st Impression

By Christopher Brookmyre

Book Overview

As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only ones desperate to locate him. A team of security experts is hired by Ross's firm: headed by the enigmatic Bett, his staff have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross's whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect he is right, but even he is taken aback by the verve underlying her determination to secure her son's safety as she learns the black arts of quiet subterfuge and violent attack. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life it's likely someone is going to lose an eye ...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316725234
• ISBN13: 9780316725231
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.5" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

OK, so I wouldn't look that good in a wetsuit....

.... being a short fat granny instead of a tall thin one like Jane Bell, this novel's heroine. Plus it's a long time since I was a mere 46 years old. However, this book is a tasty guilty pleasure for me and probably for a lot of other women whose lives have been deficient in sports cars, casinos, guns, and castles in the South of France. Really, it seems to have been written on a dare: a complicated James Bond plot (whose protagonists have already seen the movies) in which the main character is a housewife. Jane has heretofore expended her adrenaline raising kids and overcleaning the house, but when her family is threatened by what turns out to be cadres of drug and arms dealers, she does what needs to be done. I would love to see a movie of this, though by the time the plot is resolved it has folded in on itself a few more times than a script could probably handle. There is something very satisfying, about the fact that football fandom is presented as a kind of universal masculine numbness. Anyway, very funny novel, highly recommended for any woman who has time to read a novel.

Suspense thriller with lots of humour

Lots of action & glamour with a down-to-earth character, with so much humour I was laughing out loud! I haven't had this much fun from a book for a while!

Scottish suburban mother w/ fondness for Bond films kicks armdealer ass.

I think my husband is jealous-- Christopher Brookmyre makes me laugh aloud. Often. Which my (surprise, we live in L.A.) screenwriter husband has noted. At times with an edge in his voice. But it's all fun and games. I am a fan of Brookmyre's other books, all worth reading. The sweetness underlying all the action is charming, as is the intelligence of the characters. Fully enjoyable, if a bit addictive.