Aug. 6, 2024
A hardback book called “The Satsuma Complex” is all that remains of a mysterious young lady that young lawyer Gary is chatting up in the pub one night. It’s a book that everyone reckons is “a bit sh*t”. But Gary’s moping about after the Satsuma lady doing a runner while he was in the loo will have to be put on hold when his friend turns up dead.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s not going to win any prizes for quality of writing but it is both fun and funny. There are a few repetitive phrases and at one point beers magically become lagers in the space of three paragraphs. The writing is very colloquial but there is a point-of-view shift at the start of part two that deploys some writerly skill. (This short-lived though as the new point-of-view soon collapses down into one similar to the main character.)
The plot is satisfying even if it writhes more than it twists. However, there’s a cast of eccentric characters that you can’t help rooting for. A flashback was used at the start but I completely forgot it by the time we returned to that point in the narrative.
Most of the characters are amusing, even some of the villains. I quite liked the diversity of ages of the characters and the economy with which characters are deployed and reused. No character is wasted. Whether this is out of necessity because the author can’t write more than ten characters will probably be revealed in the sequel (which is on the way), nice cliffhanger.
There are also lots of amusing meta-references to the title of the book and its cover throughout, though this is not an Italo Calvino style exploration of how fiction gets represented in fiction. Instead, it’s just another gag that knowingly winks at the fourth wall. These work better than the flashback but are similarly unimportant.
I feel like by pointing out the flaws I diminish how much I enjoyed this book. It’s definitely one to take with a pinch of salt, to just enjoy in the moment. In short, it’s a good holiday read.