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WHO’S READING WHAT . reader’s recommendations

London: Arrow Books, 1997
Call No.: LAU
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You may know him as the acerbic Dr House or the dad from Stuart Little or maybe even as the clueless Wodehousian anti-hero Bertram Wooster. But comedian-actor Hugh Laurie is not just an actor: he’s also taken a stab at the typewriter and produced the excellent novel The Gun Seller, which some have billed as a James Bond spoof but that really stands on its own as an espionage thriller with a dash of humour thrown in. Many dashes, to be precise.

Thomas Lang, formerly captain in the Scots Guards, is offered a prodigious sum of money to kill someone. Then he finds out that the man he was supposed to kill is the same man who offered him the hit, the CIA and MI6 get involved, and his life starts getting complicated as he is drawn, against his will, into the web of deceit and violence spun by various players in the military-industrial complex. Through it all, he narrates his adventures in a whimsical, faintly bemused manner:

“We drove out on the M4 for about an hour, turning off, I would think, somewhere near Reading. I’d love to be able to tell you exactly which junction, and the numbers of the minor roads we took, but as I spent most of the journey on the floor of the Diplomat with my face being ground into the carpet, sensory data in-flow was a little restricted. The carpet was dark-blue and smelled of lemon, if that’s any help.”

Recommended for lovers of tight, fast-moving plots and wry British humour. And don’t miss the last line. It’s a corker.

Contributed by C. Callosum
Check out his blog here.

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