The Sparrow Conundrum edition by Bill Kirton Literature Fiction eBooks
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Winner in the Humor and Satire category of Big Al's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Awards 2012.
Winner of the Humor category in the 2011 Forward National Literature Awards.
Chris Machin isn’t his name, not to the bottom feeders in Aberdeen squabbling over North Sea oil and gas contracts. He has a code name – Sparrow – and when his garden explodes, he takes flight, plunging the power struggle into hilarious chaos and violence.
A sociopathic cop and a shady ex-girlfriend aren’t much help. The cop thinks that arresting suspects (innocent and guilty) must always involve violence and the ex turns out to be deeply involved in the events which are making Sparrow’s life so complicated.
The bodies pile up—some whole, some in fragments—and two wrestlers join the fray. A road trip seems just the solution, but then so do Inverness, a fishing trawler and a Russian factory ship as the players face … The Sparrow Conundrum.
The Sparrow Conundrum edition by Bill Kirton Literature Fiction eBooks
Opening this crime spoof at the first page, I had no real idea what to expect. Having read several of Bill Kirton’s witty, inventive blog posts, however, I had an idea that I’d enjoy it, and I was happy to be proved right. This is a gripping and frequently hilarious read, which switches effortlessly between multiple points of view and is told in crisp, intelligent writing. Writing comedy is hard – for some of us it’s impossible – so I always admire writers who can make me laugh, and Bill Kirton is one of them. The Sparrow Conundrum is also a daring book, in some ways – Kirton defies the received wisdom put forward in a hundred creative writing courses, for example, by opening the book with an incident involving two characters who don’t play any further part in the action. And you know what? It works.The story follows a hapless French teacher, Christopher Machin, who finds to his astonishment that he’s managed to become entangled in the criminal underworld and industrial espionage surrounding the Aberdeen oil industry. When you’re as timid, mild-mannered and basically ineffectual as Machin, this is a terrifying prospect – as he finds one day when his garden is blown up in a failed assassination attempt.
Soon Machin finds himself being caught in the crossfire between two rival criminal gangs, one of them called “the Cage”, whose agents are named after birds. “Eagle” – naturally – is in charge, giving orders to his underlings “Hawk” and “Kestrel”, who in turn pass instructions on to their own minions. Machin, appropriately, is named “Sparrow”, and belongs somewhere at the bottom of the pecking order. The Cage may be a ruthless criminal organisation, but it’s actually much like any bureaucratic organisation in many ways. It employs its own, often incomprehensible, jargon. Its employees engage in rivalry, all chasing after the top spot, which means that the man who actually occupies the boss’s chair has to be continually alert. Long periods of inactivity contrast with short bursts of frenetic action. The occupants of this singular world add their own, particular colour to the story. The boss, Eagle, has a passion for country music and sexual submission (which has hilarious consequences when he falls for one of my favourite characters, Bad Boy Jackson, a wrestler with a passion for knitting). Another character has an elbow fetish.
These vivid, larger-than-life characters would, in the hands of a less skilled writer, have the potential to become nothing but overblown stereotypes, but Kirton also manages to invest them with a winning humanity and vulnerability, while never letting up on the humour. Machin is a sympathetic character, of course, an everyman figure whose confusion and disbelief mirror what most of us would feel if we found ourselves being caught up in such alarming events. But even Eagle, for example, can on occasion be an almost appealing character, as here, when he’s yearning for Bad Boy Jackson:
At last, frustration and weariness had driven him in his longing to adopt the archetypal pose of unrequited lovers, poised on the edge of the abyss of night, staring Juliet-like into the velvet of infinity, and whispering the gentle sounds of his lover’s name into the soft darkness.
“Bad Boy, Bad Boy, where the **** are you, Bad Boy?” he sighed.
I love that passage: the beauty of the language in the first paragraph, the universality of the experience it represents, and the brilliantly bathetic second paragraph.
Add to this colourful cast of characters a psychopathic policeman, Lodgedale, and a ruthless but oddly charming ex-girlfriend, Tessa, and you’ve got a vivid company who all but jump off the page, as does the story. I truly found it difficult to put this fast-paced and funny novel down. What sets it apart from other funny and fast-paced novels, perhaps, is the quality of the writing. Kirton tells his story in economic prose that is also perfectly, effortlessly right.
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The Sparrow Conundrum edition by Bill Kirton Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
There is a few spelling mistakes
The Sparrow Conundrum is one of those rare spoofs that made me laugh out loud. Bill Kirton does a slick job in painting a skewed picture of the mob racket--think Reservoir Dogs, only better.
From the poor teacher with the moniker of "Sparrow" to the bumbling hitman, to the out-of-place Texan as a figurehead of an Aberdeen, Scotland-based crime "family," The Sparrow Conundrum is a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek peek inside the flighty workings of criminal "masterminds"
Mr. Kirton paints a wonderfully rich picture, develops deep characters (some of which are delightfully cringe-worthy), and is a fantastically written farce that will entertain and keep you laughing until the very end.
I suggest you pick up a copy. The smile on your face and constant chortling makes this a must-have for your collection.
Here's the trick--and it's a fine one--in this fiercely funny 'nasty' Bill Kirton adapts a genteel Wodehouse-ian tone and applies it with a deadpan expression to a tale of criminal shenangians, cross-dressing, murder, torture, and cruelty to gonads. A fine dark night's reading, if we stop at that. But what makes Bill Kirton dangerous is his mastery of diction and breadth of style when applied to his subversive ends. One of the book's classic moments is an achingly tender expression of love--by the book's worst maniac for a brutal wrestler whose only real passion is...knitting. Highly recommended.
Take a bumbling school teacher who thought he'd left his career as a drug smuggler behind, a bunch of mobsters vying for the top job, a murderously competent and stunningly beautiful woman and mix with a psychopathic police inspector intent on pinning a rap on anybody in sight and you have `the Sparrow Conundrum'. We follow the fortunes of Chris Machin (alias the Sparrow) as, all unaware, he tiptoes through the perils of a gang war between the competing mobs of Aberdeen, all after the lucrative living to be had from providing the oil industry in the North Sea with the goods and services it requires to operate. Everybody wants the Sparrow for a whole list of reasons, although, unfortunately, ex-girlfriend Tessa doesn't really want what the Sparrow wants.
The reader can almost hear Bill Kirton's Scottish brogue as he tells the story, his tongue firmly in his cheek. I laughed out loud several times and chuckled quietly rather a lot. The author sends up the gangsters and the cops in equal measure. If you enjoy the short prologue, rest assured you'll love the rest.
I saw this described as a "crime spoof," which is a perfect description. It is full of humor, often dry and subtle, as the stereotype of English humor would indicate. I learned the names of obscure (to me) birds and fish, which are used as codenames amongst the criminals; thankfully, my dictionary knew them all. Many of the criminals, especially the protagonist Chris Machin, are likeable and sympathetic (with the exception of those crimes they're supposed to be committing). In contrast, the police are anything but, not to mention much better at crime than the criminals.
Beyond the story, I enjoyed the way Kirton strings words together. For example, I love this line, for how it twists the cliché into something clever, rather than overused
"Hawk would undoubtedly have been more suspicious, but he was desperate for a gift horse and its mouth was invisible at the other end of a telephone line."
Kirton won the 2011 Forward National Literature Award in the humor category for this book, and the reason is apparent.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
Opening this crime spoof at the first page, I had no real idea what to expect. Having read several of Bill Kirton’s witty, inventive blog posts, however, I had an idea that I’d enjoy it, and I was happy to be proved right. This is a gripping and frequently hilarious read, which switches effortlessly between multiple points of view and is told in crisp, intelligent writing. Writing comedy is hard – for some of us it’s impossible – so I always admire writers who can make me laugh, and Bill Kirton is one of them. The Sparrow Conundrum is also a daring book, in some ways – Kirton defies the received wisdom put forward in a hundred creative writing courses, for example, by opening the book with an incident involving two characters who don’t play any further part in the action. And you know what? It works.
The story follows a hapless French teacher, Christopher Machin, who finds to his astonishment that he’s managed to become entangled in the criminal underworld and industrial espionage surrounding the Aberdeen oil industry. When you’re as timid, mild-mannered and basically ineffectual as Machin, this is a terrifying prospect – as he finds one day when his garden is blown up in a failed assassination attempt.
Soon Machin finds himself being caught in the crossfire between two rival criminal gangs, one of them called “the Cage”, whose agents are named after birds. “Eagle” – naturally – is in charge, giving orders to his underlings “Hawk” and “Kestrel”, who in turn pass instructions on to their own minions. Machin, appropriately, is named “Sparrow”, and belongs somewhere at the bottom of the pecking order. The Cage may be a ruthless criminal organisation, but it’s actually much like any bureaucratic organisation in many ways. It employs its own, often incomprehensible, jargon. Its employees engage in rivalry, all chasing after the top spot, which means that the man who actually occupies the boss’s chair has to be continually alert. Long periods of inactivity contrast with short bursts of frenetic action. The occupants of this singular world add their own, particular colour to the story. The boss, Eagle, has a passion for country music and sexual submission (which has hilarious consequences when he falls for one of my favourite characters, Bad Boy Jackson, a wrestler with a passion for knitting). Another character has an elbow fetish.
These vivid, larger-than-life characters would, in the hands of a less skilled writer, have the potential to become nothing but overblown stereotypes, but Kirton also manages to invest them with a winning humanity and vulnerability, while never letting up on the humour. Machin is a sympathetic character, of course, an everyman figure whose confusion and disbelief mirror what most of us would feel if we found ourselves being caught up in such alarming events. But even Eagle, for example, can on occasion be an almost appealing character, as here, when he’s yearning for Bad Boy Jackson
At last, frustration and weariness had driven him in his longing to adopt the archetypal pose of unrequited lovers, poised on the edge of the abyss of night, staring Juliet-like into the velvet of infinity, and whispering the gentle sounds of his lover’s name into the soft darkness.
“Bad Boy, Bad Boy, where the **** are you, Bad Boy?” he sighed.
I love that passage the beauty of the language in the first paragraph, the universality of the experience it represents, and the brilliantly bathetic second paragraph.
Add to this colourful cast of characters a psychopathic policeman, Lodgedale, and a ruthless but oddly charming ex-girlfriend, Tessa, and you’ve got a vivid company who all but jump off the page, as does the story. I truly found it difficult to put this fast-paced and funny novel down. What sets it apart from other funny and fast-paced novels, perhaps, is the quality of the writing. Kirton tells his story in economic prose that is also perfectly, effortlessly right.
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