Stickleback

Should you have a reasonably developed sense of humour please do your absolute utmost to ignore the other review on this title. What the previous reviewer so cruelly missed was the salient purpose of this novel - to entertain. It is quite simply one of the most insightful exposes of office culture and its attendant ennui that you will ever have the fortune to read. Anyone who has ever sat in a grey, uninspiring office, situated on a grey, featureless, business park, on the periphery of a grey McTown will simply rejoice at McCabe's ability to describe the essence of this experience (outright desperation). The fact is MacCabe HAS brilliantly explored what it is to be a young man living a hopelessly average existence, but he does it with a lightness of touch; through humour and suggestion. In this sense it does not lead the reader by the nose in some didactic 'and the lesson to be learned here folks....' style, although it does make some serious points about the disintegration of society and the challenges of being a youngish male. By turns it is funny, poignant and thought provoking. Forget Brookmyre, thus guy is the real deal. Buy it.