Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Divided Kingdom, 31 Jul 2008
I have to write about this because I read it about two months ago and I still think about it! It's set in a future time when society has become so warped that the government decides to take radical measures. It splits the country into four regions, each of which is populated by people sharing the same personality characteristics (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.). On the surface it's one man's odyssey through the 'divided kingdom' but it really does a good job of making you sit back and think about society and the way people interact within society. I would really reccommend this book.

Disappointing, 04 Dec 2007
The premise of the book, a kindom whose population is divided into countries according to personality type, is promising but it doesn't realy come off. The story is one man's fugitive tour of the different different countries propelled by good luck everytime he was in a pickle. Similes are dropped in willy-nilly for no good reason. In fact the story's structure seems to built from a kit with no literary merit at all - there is little connecting tissue here and if that is Thomson's style then it is ill suited to the subject.

I've just recieved Death of a Murderer. If that doesn't satisfy then I'll give up on him.



Acute political allegory - and much misunderstood, 26 Oct 2007
In a nightmare parody of J K Rowling's Sorting Hat ceremony, Britain wakes one day to find its people have been psychometrically pigeonholed. After a revolutionary "Rearrangement", the country is divided, the people herded into colour-coded enclosures based on each of the four classical "humours ". With every individual classified as Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic or Melancholic, the land becomes a place of borders, guards and restrictions in which good citizens must inform against any deviation from the regional norm and troublemakers are "transferred" - or worse.

Taken from his Melancholic parents at eight years old, Sanguine Thomas Parry tries to make the best of things in the Red Quarter capital, Pneuma. He has a nice flat, a beautiful girlfriend, and he's being groomed as one of the ruling elite. Until he's sent on a diplomatic mission to the Phlegmatic Blue Quarter, and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly called into question. What diseases threaten the apparent health of the body politic? What is the source of the disquiet he feels? Who are the strange White People who drift across boundaries?

Divided Kingdom is an acute political allegory, attacking our current greed for safety and security at the expense of civil freedoms. It's also a picaresque novel in the oldest tradition. Most of all though, it's a plea for wholeness: like Joyce's Bloom or Swift's Gulliver, Parry finds a part of himself in every divided quarter of the realm.


Directionless and disappointing, 18 Jul 2007
I read this book with some anticipation - the concept of a divided kingdom being enticing. Unfortunately the execution of the story is not up to the idea (who was it who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?)

There were two main problems with the story - firstly I couldn't engage with the main character. He seemed to have no real emotion - at the beginning of the book, as a child he is separated from his parents, and never cries, just pretends they are not there and apologises for others' emotional behaviour. I think from this point on I couldn't empathise with the character - perhaps if this emotionless detachment was in some way key to the book it would have made sense, but it was never used to any effect.

Secondly I couldn't understand the constant succession of characters, none of whom were used to any effect. Why introduce them if you're not going to use them to progress the story in any way? If only we had seen more development of the main character's relationship with his adoptive sister, for example, this might have been more interesting.

There are interesting touches - the white people who we meet later in the book for example, but the lack of explanation (or even hints) at their origins is frustrating and again leads to the question - why introduce them if you're not going to use them.

I'm afraid this was a dull novel unfortunately, although the concept is fascinating, if only it had been written with more heart and involvement with the characters.


A wonderful book - on a par with Huxley or Ballard, 15 Jun 2007
This is a wonderful `alternate reality' book. Other reviews compare it with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Brave New World" and I couldn't argue with that. J G Ballard springs to mind as well. It's a book about ideas; ideas about who we really are, about how we let ourselves change, about memory. It's churlish to question the basic premise - that a government has decided that the only way to restore harmony is to divide the UK into areas populated only by people with the same personality type. One could do that with all such books. How we come to be in the situation the book describes isn't the issue, it's just a jumping-off point for an exploration of the ideas and effects. And the ideas, and the journey that the central character undertakes, are so interesting that you'll forget where you jumped off from. It also must be said that the book is beautifully written, and that's not something that can always be said about this genre. Thoroughly recommended.

Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Divided Kingdom, 31 Jul 2008
I have to write about this because I read it about two months ago and I still think about it! It's set in a future time when society has become so warped that the government decides to take radical measures. It splits the country into four regions, each of which is populated by people sharing the same personality characteristics (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.). On the surface it's one man's odyssey through the 'divided kingdom' but it really does a good job of making you sit back and think about society and the way people interact within society. I would really reccommend this book.

Disappointing, 04 Dec 2007
The premise of the book, a kindom whose population is divided into countries according to personality type, is promising but it doesn't realy come off. The story is one man's fugitive tour of the different different countries propelled by good luck everytime he was in a pickle. Similes are dropped in willy-nilly for no good reason. In fact the story's structure seems to built from a kit with no literary merit at all - there is little connecting tissue here and if that is Thomson's style then it is ill suited to the subject.

I've just recieved Death of a Murderer. If that doesn't satisfy then I'll give up on him.



Acute political allegory - and much misunderstood, 26 Oct 2007
In a nightmare parody of J K Rowling's Sorting Hat ceremony, Britain wakes one day to find its people have been psychometrically pigeonholed. After a revolutionary "Rearrangement", the country is divided, the people herded into colour-coded enclosures based on each of the four classical "humours ". With every individual classified as Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic or Melancholic, the land becomes a place of borders, guards and restrictions in which good citizens must inform against any deviation from the regional norm and troublemakers are "transferred" - or worse.

Taken from his Melancholic parents at eight years old, Sanguine Thomas Parry tries to make the best of things in the Red Quarter capital, Pneuma. He has a nice flat, a beautiful girlfriend, and he's being groomed as one of the ruling elite. Until he's sent on a diplomatic mission to the Phlegmatic Blue Quarter, and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly called into question. What diseases threaten the apparent health of the body politic? What is the source of the disquiet he feels? Who are the strange White People who drift across boundaries?

Divided Kingdom is an acute political allegory, attacking our current greed for safety and security at the expense of civil freedoms. It's also a picaresque novel in the oldest tradition. Most of all though, it's a plea for wholeness: like Joyce's Bloom or Swift's Gulliver, Parry finds a part of himself in every divided quarter of the realm.


Directionless and disappointing, 18 Jul 2007
I read this book with some anticipation - the concept of a divided kingdom being enticing. Unfortunately the execution of the story is not up to the idea (who was it who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?)

There were two main problems with the story - firstly I couldn't engage with the main character. He seemed to have no real emotion - at the beginning of the book, as a child he is separated from his parents, and never cries, just pretends they are not there and apologises for others' emotional behaviour. I think from this point on I couldn't empathise with the character - perhaps if this emotionless detachment was in some way key to the book it would have made sense, but it was never used to any effect.

Secondly I couldn't understand the constant succession of characters, none of whom were used to any effect. Why introduce them if you're not going to use them to progress the story in any way? If only we had seen more development of the main character's relationship with his adoptive sister, for example, this might have been more interesting.

There are interesting touches - the white people who we meet later in the book for example, but the lack of explanation (or even hints) at their origins is frustrating and again leads to the question - why introduce them if you're not going to use them.

I'm afraid this was a dull novel unfortunately, although the concept is fascinating, if only it had been written with more heart and involvement with the characters.


A wonderful book - on a par with Huxley or Ballard, 15 Jun 2007
This is a wonderful `alternate reality' book. Other reviews compare it with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Brave New World" and I couldn't argue with that. J G Ballard springs to mind as well. It's a book about ideas; ideas about who we really are, about how we let ourselves change, about memory. It's churlish to question the basic premise - that a government has decided that the only way to restore harmony is to divide the UK into areas populated only by people with the same personality type. One could do that with all such books. How we come to be in the situation the book describes isn't the issue, it's just a jumping-off point for an exploration of the ideas and effects. And the ideas, and the journey that the central character undertakes, are so interesting that you'll forget where you jumped off from. It also must be said that the book is beautifully written, and that's not something that can always be said about this genre. Thoroughly recommended.

Fantastic, 25 Apr 2008
Just recently re-read this book, I hated knowing how it went! I thought it was brilliant, great concept, and I loved the two stories running side by side.

sheer perfection, 05 Mar 2007
An astounding read. Every sentence burns with vivid imagination. Not a wasted word, and you are gripped with a lynchian story that entertains and surprises. Half way through the plot and tone totally about turn, to an unsettling but brilliant conclusion. Sheer beauty.

Great start - poor finish, 06 Dec 2005
Having read the glowing reviews at the head of this section as I had just finished the last page of the novel I wondered whether that person had read the same novel - or had indeed read any other novels to compare it with - then the sneaky feeling the author himself had penned it crossed my mind - ah conspiracies within conspiracies!

I do have to say I concur with the more negative reviews; the novel is well written but ruins a great premise by not following through. Starting off as a great twist on two genres, conspiracy thriller and detective story, the creative impetus is really squandered by a cut and paste job of another narrator/storyline in the second half.

Not for me to read into the curious ending any great ideas about non-visibility of the blind character - just a perception that the writer was incapable of fulfilling satisfactorily the narrative strands he had posited. This is disappointing as Thomson has great writing skills, which isn't matched (in this novel, I'd be curious to see how his others pan out) by an ability to plot. It's as if he tired of the story and wanted it to end.

A story wasted, 22 Sep 2005
I use the following analogy for this book. Rupert Thomson had a fantastic dream - the story of a blind man that can see (or can he?) and his experiences adapting to his new life. However he awoke before the natural conclusion of his dream, but undeterred, he wrote down what he dreamt but was left with an unfinished novel.

The next night, he fell asleep and this time had a nightmare, where incest, child and wife abuse and ultimately murder featured. Again he woke up before the real ending but wrote it down and had the brain wave to tie it in with his first dream.

Unfortunately, it just didn't work. The linkages are tenuous at best; the ending is slapdash and unsatisfying and has put me off any of his other books for good.

If you value your sanity, avoid this book - the second half certainly isn't the type of story that you want to read on your 7am commute to work. It is a pity because the first half is a truly amazing read.

It's alright but..., 13 Jul 2005
I've read the other blinding reviews here and I found this book an easy enough read, probably good for a holiday. It isn't particularly deep and the ending was predictable from a fair way back. The book never held my interest for very long; an interesting premise at the start which was explored to death and never really resolved. The ending was weak, with a final 'realisation' by the narrator completely out of context with the rest of the book. In summary, an easy read requiring little thought.

Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Divided Kingdom, 31 Jul 2008
I have to write about this because I read it about two months ago and I still think about it! It's set in a future time when society has become so warped that the government decides to take radical measures. It splits the country into four regions, each of which is populated by people sharing the same personality characteristics (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.). On the surface it's one man's odyssey through the 'divided kingdom' but it really does a good job of making you sit back and think about society and the way people interact within society. I would really reccommend this book.

Disappointing, 04 Dec 2007
The premise of the book, a kindom whose population is divided into countries according to personality type, is promising but it doesn't realy come off. The story is one man's fugitive tour of the different different countries propelled by good luck everytime he was in a pickle. Similes are dropped in willy-nilly for no good reason. In fact the story's structure seems to built from a kit with no literary merit at all - there is little connecting tissue here and if that is Thomson's style then it is ill suited to the subject.

I've just recieved Death of a Murderer. If that doesn't satisfy then I'll give up on him.



Acute political allegory - and much misunderstood, 26 Oct 2007
In a nightmare parody of J K Rowling's Sorting Hat ceremony, Britain wakes one day to find its people have been psychometrically pigeonholed. After a revolutionary "Rearrangement", the country is divided, the people herded into colour-coded enclosures based on each of the four classical "humours ". With every individual classified as Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic or Melancholic, the land becomes a place of borders, guards and restrictions in which good citizens must inform against any deviation from the regional norm and troublemakers are "transferred" - or worse.

Taken from his Melancholic parents at eight years old, Sanguine Thomas Parry tries to make the best of things in the Red Quarter capital, Pneuma. He has a nice flat, a beautiful girlfriend, and he's being groomed as one of the ruling elite. Until he's sent on a diplomatic mission to the Phlegmatic Blue Quarter, and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly called into question. What diseases threaten the apparent health of the body politic? What is the source of the disquiet he feels? Who are the strange White People who drift across boundaries?

Divided Kingdom is an acute political allegory, attacking our current greed for safety and security at the expense of civil freedoms. It's also a picaresque novel in the oldest tradition. Most of all though, it's a plea for wholeness: like Joyce's Bloom or Swift's Gulliver, Parry finds a part of himself in every divided quarter of the realm.


Directionless and disappointing, 18 Jul 2007
I read this book with some anticipation - the concept of a divided kingdom being enticing. Unfortunately the execution of the story is not up to the idea (who was it who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?)

There were two main problems with the story - firstly I couldn't engage with the main character. He seemed to have no real emotion - at the beginning of the book, as a child he is separated from his parents, and never cries, just pretends they are not there and apologises for others' emotional behaviour. I think from this point on I couldn't empathise with the character - perhaps if this emotionless detachment was in some way key to the book it would have made sense, but it was never used to any effect.

Secondly I couldn't understand the constant succession of characters, none of whom were used to any effect. Why introduce them if you're not going to use them to progress the story in any way? If only we had seen more development of the main character's relationship with his adoptive sister, for example, this might have been more interesting.

There are interesting touches - the white people who we meet later in the book for example, but the lack of explanation (or even hints) at their origins is frustrating and again leads to the question - why introduce them if you're not going to use them.

I'm afraid this was a dull novel unfortunately, although the concept is fascinating, if only it had been written with more heart and involvement with the characters.


A wonderful book - on a par with Huxley or Ballard, 15 Jun 2007
This is a wonderful `alternate reality' book. Other reviews compare it with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Brave New World" and I couldn't argue with that. J G Ballard springs to mind as well. It's a book about ideas; ideas about who we really are, about how we let ourselves change, about memory. It's churlish to question the basic premise - that a government has decided that the only way to restore harmony is to divide the UK into areas populated only by people with the same personality type. One could do that with all such books. How we come to be in the situation the book describes isn't the issue, it's just a jumping-off point for an exploration of the ideas and effects. And the ideas, and the journey that the central character undertakes, are so interesting that you'll forget where you jumped off from. It also must be said that the book is beautifully written, and that's not something that can always be said about this genre. Thoroughly recommended.

Fantastic, 25 Apr 2008
Just recently re-read this book, I hated knowing how it went! I thought it was brilliant, great concept, and I loved the two stories running side by side.

sheer perfection, 05 Mar 2007
An astounding read. Every sentence burns with vivid imagination. Not a wasted word, and you are gripped with a lynchian story that entertains and surprises. Half way through the plot and tone totally about turn, to an unsettling but brilliant conclusion. Sheer beauty.

Great start - poor finish, 06 Dec 2005
Having read the glowing reviews at the head of this section as I had just finished the last page of the novel I wondered whether that person had read the same novel - or had indeed read any other novels to compare it with - then the sneaky feeling the author himself had penned it crossed my mind - ah conspiracies within conspiracies!

I do have to say I concur with the more negative reviews; the novel is well written but ruins a great premise by not following through. Starting off as a great twist on two genres, conspiracy thriller and detective story, the creative impetus is really squandered by a cut and paste job of another narrator/storyline in the second half.

Not for me to read into the curious ending any great ideas about non-visibility of the blind character - just a perception that the writer was incapable of fulfilling satisfactorily the narrative strands he had posited. This is disappointing as Thomson has great writing skills, which isn't matched (in this novel, I'd be curious to see how his others pan out) by an ability to plot. It's as if he tired of the story and wanted it to end.

A story wasted, 22 Sep 2005
I use the following analogy for this book. Rupert Thomson had a fantastic dream - the story of a blind man that can see (or can he?) and his experiences adapting to his new life. However he awoke before the natural conclusion of his dream, but undeterred, he wrote down what he dreamt but was left with an unfinished novel.

The next night, he fell asleep and this time had a nightmare, where incest, child and wife abuse and ultimately murder featured. Again he woke up before the real ending but wrote it down and had the brain wave to tie it in with his first dream.

Unfortunately, it just didn't work. The linkages are tenuous at best; the ending is slapdash and unsatisfying and has put me off any of his other books for good.

If you value your sanity, avoid this book - the second half certainly isn't the type of story that you want to read on your 7am commute to work. It is a pity because the first half is a truly amazing read.

It's alright but..., 13 Jul 2005
I've read the other blinding reviews here and I found this book an easy enough read, probably good for a holiday. It isn't particularly deep and the ending was predictable from a fair way back. The book never held my interest for very long; an interesting premise at the start which was explored to death and never really resolved. The ending was weak, with a final 'realisation' by the narrator completely out of context with the rest of the book. In summary, an easy read requiring little thought.

Aha - Thomson with discipline!, 11 Oct 2005
Having read all Thomson's novels bar the latest (Divided Kingdom), I can now say that this is by far his best. Unfortunately, it is also very different in style and content to all the others - not just due to the early 20th century setting, as opposed to the late 20th century settings of most of his other novels, though this does help avoid some of the more over-detailed sexual obsessions of novels like 'Five Gates of Hell'. It's as if, with the perspective of history, Thomson has to focus on plot rather than just meander in whatever psycho-sexual direction his muse takes him (as in 'The Insult', 'Five Gates of Hell' and 'The Book of Revelation'). I hope that, after the disastrous reviews of 'Divided Kingdom', Thomson moves away from ill-considered science fiction and the sexual and drug-filled obsessions of his youth and writes more fiction from a historical perspective. Thomson is a brilliant writer whose verbal pyrotechnics capture the characters and personalities of social alienation like few others, but he lacks discipline and his editors are not strong enough to tell him where he is going wrong. 'Air and Fire' shows that, with fixed points of historical reference, he can put all his power of expression into telling a good story. Then he can move up into the realms of the great Australian novelist, Patrick White, whose wonderful novel 'Voss' this 'Air and Fire' novel so reminds me of. I fear, however, that Thomson saw this as a one-off (having published it in 1998). I'd dearly like him to re-consider his direction. Leave the macabre to Michel Faber, Rupert, and let's have more of the warm observation, love of detail and, yes, humour, that you put into 'Air and Fire'.

Earthy & Dry, 18 Mar 2001
It's a shame that this book has been so long overshadowed by the other, slightly showier, elements of Thomson's oeuvre. It was his third novel, and his first great one, after the entertaining but baggy "Dreams of Leaving" and the forced strangeness of "Five Gates of Hell."

For those readers, like me, who find most of his work a touch glib (if beautifully written and original), "Air & Fire" will cheer your soul. One part "Oscar & Lucinda" to three parts Graham Greene, it's the central love story and the character of Wilson that resonates. The writing is parched and suffocating, appropriate to the Mexican setting, and it's worth noting here that Thomson has probably the deepest bran tub of remarkable similes in modern literature.

It has a coherence and force lacking in, say, "Soft" and "The Book of Revelation," both of which make you feel that too many ideas were thrown into the mix without being fully realised. There is a difference between understatement and frustrating the reader, and "Air & Fire" comes down beautifully on the right side.

And, for once in common with Thomson's other novels, it realises too that happy endings are best left to Hollywood.

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of French people sent to California at the end of the 19th century to build a church. The Insult is about a man blinded by a robber in a supermarket parking lot who discovers one night that--because of a bizarre experiment--he can see again. Thomson's latest finds three very different characters--an aimless waitress, a reluctant hit man, and an ambitious young marketing executive--linked by the sudden success of a new soft drink. But a closer look confirms the feeling that Soft continues the author's fascination with the way science can bend and shape the destinies of all sorts of nonscientific people. Certainly Glade Spencer, the flaky young woman who flies off periodically for unpleasant encounters with her American lawyer boyfriend, has no idea when she signs up for a sleep clinic to earn some extra cash that the soda slogans planted in her brain could cause her death. Barker Dodds, the nightclub bouncer from Plymouth, doesn't know why he's being paid to kill Glade. And James Lyle, the striving marketer who thought up the brainwashing scheme in the first place, is deliberately out of the loop about its consequences. All three are so perfectly drawn that you'd recognize them on the street, and the way Thomson describes their quirky, weirdly decorated flats and lifestyles captures the flickering pulse of London with uncanny accuracy. --Dick Adler

Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Divided Kingdom, 31 Jul 2008
I have to write about this because I read it about two months ago and I still think about it! It's set in a future time when society has become so warped that the government decides to take radical measures. It splits the country into four regions, each of which is populated by people sharing the same personality characteristics (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.). On the surface it's one man's odyssey through the 'divided kingdom' but it really does a good job of making you sit back and think about society and the way people interact within society. I would really reccommend this book.

Disappointing, 04 Dec 2007
The premise of the book, a kindom whose population is divided into countries according to personality type, is promising but it doesn't realy come off. The story is one man's fugitive tour of the different different countries propelled by good luck everytime he was in a pickle. Similes are dropped in willy-nilly for no good reason. In fact the story's structure seems to built from a kit with no literary merit at all - there is little connecting tissue here and if that is Thomson's style then it is ill suited to the subject.

I've just recieved Death of a Murderer. If that doesn't satisfy then I'll give up on him.



Acute political allegory - and much misunderstood, 26 Oct 2007
In a nightmare parody of J K Rowling's Sorting Hat ceremony, Britain wakes one day to find its people have been psychometrically pigeonholed. After a revolutionary "Rearrangement", the country is divided, the people herded into colour-coded enclosures based on each of the four classical "humours ". With every individual classified as Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic or Melancholic, the land becomes a place of borders, guards and restrictions in which good citizens must inform against any deviation from the regional norm and troublemakers are "transferred" - or worse.

Taken from his Melancholic parents at eight years old, Sanguine Thomas Parry tries to make the best of things in the Red Quarter capital, Pneuma. He has a nice flat, a beautiful girlfriend, and he's being groomed as one of the ruling elite. Until he's sent on a diplomatic mission to the Phlegmatic Blue Quarter, and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly called into question. What diseases threaten the apparent health of the body politic? What is the source of the disquiet he feels? Who are the strange White People who drift across boundaries?

Divided Kingdom is an acute political allegory, attacking our current greed for safety and security at the expense of civil freedoms. It's also a picaresque novel in the oldest tradition. Most of all though, it's a plea for wholeness: like Joyce's Bloom or Swift's Gulliver, Parry finds a part of himself in every divided quarter of the realm.


Directionless and disappointing, 18 Jul 2007
I read this book with some anticipation - the concept of a divided kingdom being enticing. Unfortunately the execution of the story is not up to the idea (who was it who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?)

There were two main problems with the story - firstly I couldn't engage with the main character. He seemed to have no real emotion - at the beginning of the book, as a child he is separated from his parents, and never cries, just pretends they are not there and apologises for others' emotional behaviour. I think from this point on I couldn't empathise with the character - perhaps if this emotionless detachment was in some way key to the book it would have made sense, but it was never used to any effect.

Secondly I couldn't understand the constant succession of characters, none of whom were used to any effect. Why introduce them if you're not going to use them to progress the story in any way? If only we had seen more development of the main character's relationship with his adoptive sister, for example, this might have been more interesting.

There are interesting touches - the white people who we meet later in the book for example, but the lack of explanation (or even hints) at their origins is frustrating and again leads to the question - why introduce them if you're not going to use them.

I'm afraid this was a dull novel unfortunately, although the concept is fascinating, if only it had been written with more heart and involvement with the characters.


A wonderful book - on a par with Huxley or Ballard, 15 Jun 2007
This is a wonderful `alternate reality' book. Other reviews compare it with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Brave New World" and I couldn't argue with that. J G Ballard springs to mind as well. It's a book about ideas; ideas about who we really are, about how we let ourselves change, about memory. It's churlish to question the basic premise - that a government has decided that the only way to restore harmony is to divide the UK into areas populated only by people with the same personality type. One could do that with all such books. How we come to be in the situation the book describes isn't the issue, it's just a jumping-off point for an exploration of the ideas and effects. And the ideas, and the journey that the central character undertakes, are so interesting that you'll forget where you jumped off from. It also must be said that the book is beautifully written, and that's not something that can always be said about this genre. Thoroughly recommended.

Fantastic, 25 Apr 2008
Just recently re-read this book, I hated knowing how it went! I thought it was brilliant, great concept, and I loved the two stories running side by side.

sheer perfection, 05 Mar 2007
An astounding read. Every sentence burns with vivid imagination. Not a wasted word, and you are gripped with a lynchian story that entertains and surprises. Half way through the plot and tone totally about turn, to an unsettling but brilliant conclusion. Sheer beauty.

Great start - poor finish, 06 Dec 2005
Having read the glowing reviews at the head of this section as I had just finished the last page of the novel I wondered whether that person had read the same novel - or had indeed read any other novels to compare it with - then the sneaky feeling the author himself had penned it crossed my mind - ah conspiracies within conspiracies!

I do have to say I concur with the more negative reviews; the novel is well written but ruins a great premise by not following through. Starting off as a great twist on two genres, conspiracy thriller and detective story, the creative impetus is really squandered by a cut and paste job of another narrator/storyline in the second half.

Not for me to read into the curious ending any great ideas about non-visibility of the blind character - just a perception that the writer was incapable of fulfilling satisfactorily the narrative strands he had posited. This is disappointing as Thomson has great writing skills, which isn't matched (in this novel, I'd be curious to see how his others pan out) by an ability to plot. It's as if he tired of the story and wanted it to end.

A story wasted, 22 Sep 2005
I use the following analogy for this book. Rupert Thomson had a fantastic dream - the story of a blind man that can see (or can he?) and his experiences adapting to his new life. However he awoke before the natural conclusion of his dream, but undeterred, he wrote down what he dreamt but was left with an unfinished novel.

The next night, he fell asleep and this time had a nightmare, where incest, child and wife abuse and ultimately murder featured. Again he woke up before the real ending but wrote it down and had the brain wave to tie it in with his first dream.

Unfortunately, it just didn't work. The linkages are tenuous at best; the ending is slapdash and unsatisfying and has put me off any of his other books for good.

If you value your sanity, avoid this book - the second half certainly isn't the type of story that you want to read on your 7am commute to work. It is a pity because the first half is a truly amazing read.

It's alright but..., 13 Jul 2005
I've read the other blinding reviews here and I found this book an easy enough read, probably good for a holiday. It isn't particularly deep and the ending was predictable from a fair way back. The book never held my interest for very long; an interesting premise at the start which was explored to death and never really resolved. The ending was weak, with a final 'realisation' by the narrator completely out of context with the rest of the book. In summary, an easy read requiring little thought.

Aha - Thomson with discipline!, 11 Oct 2005
Having read all Thomson's novels bar the latest (Divided Kingdom), I can now say that this is by far his best. Unfortunately, it is also very different in style and content to all the others - not just due to the early 20th century setting, as opposed to the late 20th century settings of most of his other novels, though this does help avoid some of the more over-detailed sexual obsessions of novels like 'Five Gates of Hell'. It's as if, with the perspective of history, Thomson has to focus on plot rather than just meander in whatever psycho-sexual direction his muse takes him (as in 'The Insult', 'Five Gates of Hell' and 'The Book of Revelation'). I hope that, after the disastrous reviews of 'Divided Kingdom', Thomson moves away from ill-considered science fiction and the sexual and drug-filled obsessions of his youth and writes more fiction from a historical perspective. Thomson is a brilliant writer whose verbal pyrotechnics capture the characters and personalities of social alienation like few others, but he lacks discipline and his editors are not strong enough to tell him where he is going wrong. 'Air and Fire' shows that, with fixed points of historical reference, he can put all his power of expression into telling a good story. Then he can move up into the realms of the great Australian novelist, Patrick White, whose wonderful novel 'Voss' this 'Air and Fire' novel so reminds me of. I fear, however, that Thomson saw this as a one-off (having published it in 1998). I'd dearly like him to re-consider his direction. Leave the macabre to Michel Faber, Rupert, and let's have more of the warm observation, love of detail and, yes, humour, that you put into 'Air and Fire'.

Earthy & Dry, 18 Mar 2001
It's a shame that this book has been so long overshadowed by the other, slightly showier, elements of Thomson's oeuvre. It was his third novel, and his first great one, after the entertaining but baggy "Dreams of Leaving" and the forced strangeness of "Five Gates of Hell."

For those readers, like me, who find most of his work a touch glib (if beautifully written and original), "Air & Fire" will cheer your soul. One part "Oscar & Lucinda" to three parts Graham Greene, it's the central love story and the character of Wilson that resonates. The writing is parched and suffocating, appropriate to the Mexican setting, and it's worth noting here that Thomson has probably the deepest bran tub of remarkable similes in modern literature.

It has a coherence and force lacking in, say, "Soft" and "The Book of Revelation," both of which make you feel that too many ideas were thrown into the mix without being fully realised. There is a difference between understatement and frustrating the reader, and "Air & Fire" comes down beautifully on the right side.

And, for once in common with Thomson's other novels, it realises too that happy endings are best left to Hollywood.

Thumbs Down - description for description's sake., 23 Mar 2007
Disappointed! Having read 'Air and Fire' back in the 90's and absolutely loving it, I finally got round to reading another RT book - and I shouldn't have chosen this one. The story line is weak, and the writing is totally OTT in terms of his need to over-describe everything in a really amateur way - and don't get me wrong, it was his descriptive writing which made me fall in love with Air and Fire. In this novel, it totally overpowers the story, which in its own right is poor. In addition, the link with viral marketing is completely flawed. Sorry Rupert - thumbs down from me!

Promising start but felt let down, 03 Jun 2006
I really liked the opening part of the book which focussed on Barker, but then I felt the following parts fell flat, especially the ending which was woeful. Also found the similies started to grate after a while.

Effervescent Writing, 01 Jun 2004
"Soft" is a novel based around three central characters; the reluctant hard man Barker Dodds, bewildered Kwench ! guinea pig Glade Spencer and ruthless advertising executive , Jimmy Lyle. They are all involved in some way with a sinister , subliminal mind-control project linked with the UK launch of the soft drink Kwench ! Predictably things don't go to plan and tragic consequences ensue.

The characters of Barker and Glade are explored in detail and despite their different social backgrounds and the random manner in which they are thrown together , their similarities outweigh their differences. Both are essentially loners,disconnected from the world around them, seeking stability and meaning in life after emerging from broken domestic relationships . The working class ,bouncer-turned-barber anti-hero Barker meets the petit-bourgeois art-school waitress Glade.

What I enjoyed most about "Soft" (and other Rupert Thomson novels) is the stylish and evocative writing. You could open the book at random and be impressed by the smart observations, the sharp, minimalist imagery and the smoothness of the narration. Here are some examples :

"Her eyes were pale grey-blue , the kind of colour that on paint-sample charts would probably be called "Cool Slate" or "Dawn Surprise".

"She walked on ,through streets that smelled of exhaust-fumes, blossom and ... toast."

"The sky was the colour of beer."

Such is the vividness of Thomson's writing that at times you can almost smell it.

So why not give "Soft" 5 stars ? Well, probably because the plot was a little inconsequential at times with themes like mind-control underdeveloped as the author focused on exploring at length the characters of the main protagonists, their unfulfilled lives and their relationship with modern society.

Barker and Glade both have big hearts and ultimately this proves incompatible with the amoral urban environment in which they must live.

The best book about Viral Marketing !, 05 Apr 2001
This book is great. I first bought it because the cover was nice and because, according to the nice cover, both the FT and Time out were enthousiastic about it (the book, enough with the cover). I then liked it because it has everything you wish from a book : good story, good characters, suspens, real lifes mixing... By the way for marketing freaks it is also about the trendy "viral" marketing. JC

Not a single word is wasted., 26 Jan 1999
Rupert Thompson's books get better and better. If you liked The Insult, you'll love this. His ability to conjure up an entire scene in a single short sentence in unparalleled, and the plot is as clever as the imagery. I finished the book in mere hours; I think my mind has been subtly altered...

Not thrilling, 12 Nov 2008
Unfortunately I didn't experience the chills or the thrills that some readers experienced. I agree that Death of a Murderer is vivid and unusual but it left me without any real feelings towards any of the characters. Not only did I find the plot mundane and painfully predictable, but to me areas were simply a rehash of the biography with glimpses of a plot around it. The lack of calling the murderer by name at initially seemed a poignant move but that was exactly the problem, you notice it straight a way. As the plot progresses the edition of the name just seemed a little immature and forced in places. No doubt some people will regard this a a phenomenal literary device but I found it completely unsubtle. It would have been great to only realise it upon reflection.

That said, I loved the concept of guarding the body of a child-killer and perhaps my expectations were too high. Having some experience of mortuaries, I was impressed how Thomson captured the atmosphere without falling back on the Hollywood cliche. If you are drawn to the book because of the 'notorious child-killer' then read 'The Lost Boy' by Duncan staff is far more chilling and involving. Anyway give it a go, you might get on with it.

Just a bit too forced, 16 Oct 2008
Rupert Thomson's novels have usually revolved around a cataclysmic external event happening to someone, generating before and after sections. Death of a Murderer departs from this model.

We find Billy Tyler, an unremarkable police constable who lacks much sense of ambition, guarding Myra Hindley's body at a hospital mortuary during a 12 hour night shift. To say that nothing happens is an understatement. It is just Billy, his notebook and his inner thoughts.

Billy has issues at home. He knows that he has been a disappointment to his wife Sue - he never took her travelling and now their daughter Emma, who has Down's Syndrome, means that he probably never will. His father in law is unsympathetic and he doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends. Phil, a colleague he took through induction, might have been a friend, but Billy now has to call him Sarge.

Obviously, there is some fascination with Myra Hindley - and unnamed and unseen presence. Billy starts to consider what it means to be evil, and this is pretty much the only topic of conversation in the brief interludes that Billy has someone to speak to. Billy is torn between the view that Hindley was inherently evil or that she was a normal person who did wicked things. This plays on in a dialogue between Billy and Hindley's ghost. This, though, didn't ring quite true. Hindley's ghost was portrayed as a cold, dispassionate person dealing with the issues in a very matter of fact fashion. However, in the newspapers Hindley had always seemed to be a complex contradiction between evasiveness and contrition. That her ghost would be neither felt wrong. It could be argued that Billy was playing out a monologue based on his own, imperfect, impression of Hindley and what makes a serial killer.

There were some elements of the backstory that also didn't quite ring true. It felt rather convenient that Billy had an episode to match his every thought. This gave it an air of that most hateful thing - a competency based interview.

Overall, we had quite a deep portrait of Billy himself, but perhaps the reader may wonder whether Billy was quite interesting enough to warrant it. Myra Hindley did enable some moral issues to be debated, but perhaps her principle role is simply to adorn the front cover to attract readers. Had Billy been sat on an observation detail all night outside a warehouse, he would probably still have had the time and space to consider his life and ponder the differences between right and wrong. This adds up to make an interesting novel: one which is readable but not especially gripping. It is brave in taking on morality as an issue, but the plot is just a bit too forced.

lacks a gripping edge, 26 May 2008
The book tells the story of a Police Officer who guards the body of a mass murderer, the officer is left with his own thoughts and imagination.

The book lacks a real gritty story, it is well written and captures peoples emotions but not much can happen to someone who is locked in a room with a few dead bodies.

There were parts that I thought the book was taking a twist only for the story to go back to the four walls of the mortuary.

A well written book that lacks a gripping edge.

Complex, disturbing and thought provoking - well worth the price of admission, 10 Apr 2008
Thompson's novels seem to have a slightly unreal feel to them: a sense characters don't quite talk to one another, a lack of connection, that things aren't quite as they should be. In this book, following the thoughts and reminiscences of a police officer as he guards the body of a famous murderess (the never named Mira Hindley), it works stunningly well. The crimes committed by the murderer stun one anyway - leave one feeling that their enormity is always slightly beyond you. The long late shift, sitting in a hospital morgue into the small hours, the conversations in hospital cafes, where strangers make connections they otherwise never would, even the feeling of disassociation between a couple married for many years, all seem to suit Thompson's style and vision perfectly.

The story examines how people were affected by Hindley and her and Brady's crimes. Generally, its interest is not with those directly affected by her - her victims, her family. Instead, it looks, through its microcosm of the central police officer, at the effect on people more generally. How do we react to those crimes? Did her childhood condition her to act as she did? Could a normal - otherwise loving - woman ever kill a child too? What might we do for love?

I agree with the previous reviewer that the story is, at points, rather too contrived. We can see the author pulling the strings rather too obviously. Generally, however, Thompson avoids this flaw. The relationship between the police constable, his wife and their daughter feels plausibly real. It anchors the story solidly and gives it its emotional heart. The result is a compelling novel.

Unusual and thought-provoking, 16 Mar 2008
I felt a strong theme throughout this book was 'fathers', and their strong influence on their children:
Billy's neglectful father, a past girlfriends abusive father, a neighbour whom Billy looks upon as a father figure, his wife's sneering and contemptuous father and his own roll as father to Emma who has Downs Syndrome. This is also bourne out in his 'conversation' with Hindley who doesn't want to talk about her moody and violent father and even the film he and Sue saw in Amsterdam was 'In The Name of The Father'.

He spends his shift guarding the notorious child killers body and his mind drifts to his relationships and experiences in life that have made him who is. I liked the concept and can't agree enough on how influential a father can be in their child's social and emotional development - this isn't an excuse for people who've had bad relationships with their fathers, to use to behave unacceptably. But does question whether rejection/abuse/neglect effects our relationships both growing up and throughout life.

The ending felt a bit of an anti climax, yet I can appreciate it's subtlety as Billy see's his role as Emma's daddy one that will over ride his previous experiences.
Overall an interesting book, and one worth reading, but not one I would rave about.

Divided Kingdom, 31 Jul 2008
I have to write about this because I read it about two months ago and I still think about it! It's set in a future time when society has become so warped that the government decides to take radical measures. It splits the country into four regions, each of which is populated by people sharing the same personality characteristics (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine.). On the surface it's one man's odyssey through the 'divided kingdom' but it really does a good job of making you sit back and think about society and the way people interact within society. I would really reccommend this book.

Disappointing, 04 Dec 2007
The premise of the book, a kindom whose population is divided into countries according to personality type, is promising but it doesn't realy come off. The story is one man's fugitive tour of the different different countries propelled by good luck everytime he was in a pickle. Similes are dropped in willy-nilly for no good reason. In fact the story's structure seems to built from a kit with no literary merit at all - there is little connecting tissue here and if that is Thomson's style then it is ill suited to the subject.

I've just recieved Death of a Murderer. If that doesn't satisfy then I'll give up on him.



Acute political allegory - and much misunderstood, 26 Oct 2007
In a nightmare parody of J K Rowling's Sorting Hat ceremony, Britain wakes one day to find its people have been psychometrically pigeonholed. After a revolutionary "Rearrangement", the country is divided, the people herded into colour-coded enclosures based on each of the four classical "humours ". With every individual classified as Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic or Melancholic, the land becomes a place of borders, guards and restrictions in which good citizens must inform against any deviation from the regional norm and troublemakers are "transferred" - or worse.

Taken from his Melancholic parents at eight years old, Sanguine Thomas Parry tries to make the best of things in the Red Quarter capital, Pneuma. He has a nice flat, a beautiful girlfriend, and he's being groomed as one of the ruling elite. Until he's sent on a diplomatic mission to the Phlegmatic Blue Quarter, and everything he thinks he knows is suddenly called into question. What diseases threaten the apparent health of the body politic? What is the source of the disquiet he feels? Who are the strange White People who drift across boundaries?

Divided Kingdom is an acute political allegory, attacking our current greed for safety and security at the expense of civil freedoms. It's also a picaresque novel in the oldest tradition. Most of all though, it's a plea for wholeness: like Joyce's Bloom or Swift's Gulliver, Parry finds a part of himself in every divided quarter of the realm.


Directionless and disappointing, 18 Jul 2007
I read this book with some anticipation - the concept of a divided kingdom being enticing. Unfortunately the execution of the story is not up to the idea (who was it who said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?)

There were two main problems with the story - firstly I couldn't engage with the main character. He seemed to have no real emotion - at the beginning of the book, as a child he is separated from his parents, and never cries, just pretends they are not there and apologises for others' emotional behaviour. I think from this point on I couldn't empathise with the character - perhaps if this emotionless detachment was in some way key to the book it would have made sense, but it was never used to any effect.

Secondly I couldn't understand the constant succession of characters, none of whom were used to any effect. Why introduce them if you're not going to use them to progress the story in any way? If only we had seen more development of the main character's relationship with his adoptive sister, for example, this might have been more interesting.

There are interesting touches - the white people who we meet later in the book for example, but the lack of explanation (or even hints) at their origins is frustrating and again leads to the question - why introduce them if you're not going to use them.

I'm afraid this was a dull novel unfortunately, although the concept is fascinating, if only it had been written with more heart and involvement with the characters.


A wonderful book - on a par with Huxley or Ballard, 15 Jun 2007
This is a wonderful `alternate reality' book. Other reviews compare it with "Gulliver's Travels" and "Brave New World" and I couldn't argue with that. J G Ballard springs to mind as well. It's a book about ideas; ideas about who we really are, about how we let ourselves change, about memory. It's churlish to question the basic premise - that a government has decided that the only way to restore harmony is to divide the UK into areas populated only by people with the same personality type. One could do that with all such books. How we come to be in the situation the book describes isn't the issue, it's just a jumping-off point for an exploration of the ideas and effects. And the ideas, and the journey that the central character undertakes, are so interesting that you'll forget where you jumped off from. It also must be said that the book is beautifully written, and that's not something that can always be said about this genre. Thoroughly recommended.

Fantastic, 25 Apr 2008
Just recently re-read this book, I hated knowing how it went! I thought it was brilliant, great concept, and I loved the two stories running side by side.

sheer perfection, 05 Mar 2007
An astounding read. Every sentence burns with vivid imagination. Not a wasted word, and you are gripped with a lynchian story that entertains and surprises. Half way through the plot and tone totally about turn, to an unsettling but brilliant conclusion. Sheer beauty.

Great start - poor finish, 06 Dec 2005
Having read the glowing reviews at the head of this section as I had just finished the last page of the novel I wondered whether that person had read the same novel - or had indeed read any other novels to compare it with - then the sneaky feeling the author himself had penned it crossed my mind - ah conspiracies within conspiracies!

I do have to say I concur with the more negative reviews; the novel is well written but ruins a great premise by not following through. Starting off as a great twist on two genres, conspiracy thriller and detective story, the creative impetus is really squandered by a cut and paste job of another narrator/storyline in the second half.

Not for me to read into the curious ending any great ideas about non-visibility of the blind character - just a perception that the writer was incapable of fulfilling satisfactorily the narrative strands he had posited. This is disappointing as Thomson has great writing skills, which isn't matched (in this novel, I'd be curious to see how his others pan out) by an ability to plot. It's as if he tired of the story and wanted it to end.

A story wasted, 22 Sep 2005
I use the following analogy for this book. Rupert Thomson had a fantastic dream - the story of a blind man that can see (or can he?) and his experiences adapting to his new life. However he awoke before the natural conclusion of his dream, but undeterred, he wrote down what he dreamt but was left with an unfinished novel.

The next night, he fell asleep and this time had a nightmare, where incest, child and wife abuse and ultimately murder featured. Again he woke up before the real ending but wrote it down and had the brain wave to tie it in with his first dream.

Unfortunately, it just didn't work. The linkages are tenuous at best; the ending is slapdash and unsatisfying and has put me off any of his other books for good.

If you value your sanity, avoid this book - the second half certainly isn't the type of story that you want to read on your 7am commute to work. It is a pity because the first half is a truly amazing read.

It's alright but..., 13 Jul 2005
I've read the other blinding reviews here and I found this book an easy enough read, probably good for a holiday. It isn't particularly deep and the ending was predictable from a fair way back. The book never held my interest for very long; an interesting premise at the start which was explored to death and never really resolved. The ending was weak, with a final 'realisation' by the narrator completely out of context with the rest of the book. In summary, an easy read requiring little thought.

Aha - Thomson with discipline!, 11 Oct 2005
Having read all Thomson's novels bar the latest (Divided Kingdom), I can now say that this is by far his best. Unfortunately, it is also very different in style and content to all the others - not just due to the early 20th century setting, as opposed to the late 20th century settings of most of his other novels, though this does help avoid some of the more over-detailed sexual obsessions of novels like 'Five Gates of Hell'. It's as if, with the perspective of history, Thomson has to focus on plot rather than just meander in whatever psycho-sexual direction his muse takes him (as in 'The Insult', 'Five Gates of Hell' and 'The Book of Revelation'). I hope that, after the disastrous reviews of 'Divided Kingdom', Thomson moves away from ill-considered science fiction and the sexual and drug-filled obsessions of his youth and writes more fiction from a historical perspective. Thomson is a brilliant writer whose verbal pyrotechnics capture the characters and personalities of social alienation like few others, but he lacks discipline and his editors are not strong enough to tell him where he is going wrong. 'Air and Fire' shows that, with fixed points of historical reference, he can put all his power of expression into telling a good story. Then he can move up into the realms of the great Australian novelist, Patrick White, whose wonderful novel 'Voss' this 'Air and Fire' novel so reminds me of. I fear, however, that Thomson saw this as a one-off (having published it in 1998). I'd dearly like him to re-consider his direction. Leave the macabre to Michel Faber, Rupert, and let's have more of the warm observation, love of detail and, yes, humour, that you put into 'Air and Fire'.

Earthy & Dry, 18 Mar 2001
It's a shame that this book has been so long overshadowed by the other, slightly showier, elements of Thomson's oeuvre. It was his third novel, and his first great one, after the entertaining but baggy "Dreams of Leaving" and the forced strangeness of "Five Gates of Hell."

For those readers, like me, who find most of his work a touch glib (if beautifully written and original), "Air & Fire" will cheer your soul. One part "Oscar & Lucinda" to three parts Graham Greene, it's the central love story and the character of Wilson that resonates. The writing is parched and suffocating, appropriate to the Mexican setting, and it's worth noting here that Thomson has probably the deepest bran tub of remarkable similes in modern literature.

It has a coherence and force lacking in, say, "Soft" and "The Book of Revelation," both of which make you feel that too many ideas were thrown into the mix without being fully realised. There is a difference between understatement and frustrating the reader, and "Air & Fire" comes down beautifully on the right side.

And, for once in common with Thomson's other novels, it realises too that happy endings are best left to Holly