Not the End of the World

The Guardian (London) has called comic-thriller writer Christopher Brookmyre "the next star of the genre". His American debut, Not the End of the World, is a fast and furious novel set in Los Angeles at the near side of the millennium, at a point when the world is about to spin out of control -- and maybe out of existence. When an oceanic research vessel is discovered with all of its crew vanished, it sets off a chain of events that pulls Lt. Larry Freeman of the LAPD out of the ho-hum assignment of overseeing the security for a B-movie film festival and headlong into a frenzied race to stop a terrorist plot. Along the way he must contend with aging porn stars, rabid evangelical Christians, a mysterious Glaswegian photographer, and an unknown agenda, all in a frenzied -- and ultimately hysterical-race against time. "Imagine Day of the Locust updated and rewritten by Carl Hiaasen. ... Good solid fun." -- Kirkus Reviews "Perpetually in-your-face: sassy, irreverent, and stylish ... [with] a high-octane sense of the absurd." -- The Times (London) "Very violent, very funny ... comedy with a political edge, which you take gleefully in one gulp." -- Literary Review

From Publishers WeeklyBritish author Brookmyre (One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night; Quite Ugly One Morning; etc.) makes his American debut with this thriller, but seems to have left most of his punch on the far side of the ocean. Scottish photographer Steff Kennedy is attending a B-list movie festival, held at an L.A. hotel, where he intends to snap some pics and joke about the self-importance of Hollywood. There he meets and makes eyes with Maddy Witherson, a sweet, misunderstood porn star famous for her leading role in Whore of Babylon; it is later revealed she was sexually abused as a girl by her Bible-waving father, a U.S. senator. Meanwhile, LAPD officer Larry Freeman is investigating the mysterious disappearance of a group of scientists from an ocean research vessel. Everyone's paths cross when a conservative Christian group decides to augment its anti-Hollywood rhetoric with a well-placed bomb, which literally dumps Maddy into Steff's arms. The bombers, however, demand an even more extreme remedy Maddy's suicide on national television as an act of public repentance or they'll blow up a boat full of Hollywood executives. While it's obvious that everyone will scramble to stop the bombers, less plausible elements like a bunch of long-lost religious scrolls and lots of chatter about the impending end of the world, are distracting. Brookmyre's previous book may have achieved some success across the Atlantic, but this jumbled effort feels like it's been cobbled together from whatever trashy American TV shows are currently in British syndication.