Post by youthofoz on Sept 8, 2012 21:32:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I've spent the last few weeks chewing through this political thriller-cum-murder-mystery and I can honestly say it's been worth my time. Having only known the Murray Wheelan franchise from its televisual incarnation, I find the printed word far more in the style of rake. I could only see Richard Roxburough saying the lines of a far more cynical (and sexual) Murray than the perpetual innocent David Whenham gave the character - it's like going from the Fifth Doctor to Dirk Gently.
The plot leaps around in a non-linear fashion as we go from Murray stalking Melbourne at 4 in the morning searching for his long lost son to the complicated political scheme of setting up rival political parties that can be destroyed when the time is right to allow the current government the majority of the vote. Angelo Angelli, possibly, comes across as far more sympathetic than he should and his ultimate fate is not the long-delayed karma it should be.
As for why it took me so long to read through this book, the violence, sex and sexy violence could be part of the problem. Like countless celibate heroes, Murray finds himself being jumped by anything with an X chromosone at the most inconvenient of times - but that's nothing for the far nastier sequences where a drunken nightclubber slams Murray's head into a toilet bowl and smashes off Murray's front teeth. The home invasion-public urination chapter similarly left me feeling weak and faint. For all its wit and comic turn, this is a dark and brutal story of mistakes made and friends lost - all told in the bewildering style that makes it easy to forget this is a story set nearly twenty years ago, it remains so topical.
If you can hold your lunch, I recommend The Big Ask unconditionally.
The plot leaps around in a non-linear fashion as we go from Murray stalking Melbourne at 4 in the morning searching for his long lost son to the complicated political scheme of setting up rival political parties that can be destroyed when the time is right to allow the current government the majority of the vote. Angelo Angelli, possibly, comes across as far more sympathetic than he should and his ultimate fate is not the long-delayed karma it should be.
As for why it took me so long to read through this book, the violence, sex and sexy violence could be part of the problem. Like countless celibate heroes, Murray finds himself being jumped by anything with an X chromosone at the most inconvenient of times - but that's nothing for the far nastier sequences where a drunken nightclubber slams Murray's head into a toilet bowl and smashes off Murray's front teeth. The home invasion-public urination chapter similarly left me feeling weak and faint. For all its wit and comic turn, this is a dark and brutal story of mistakes made and friends lost - all told in the bewildering style that makes it easy to forget this is a story set nearly twenty years ago, it remains so topical.
If you can hold your lunch, I recommend The Big Ask unconditionally.