Scooter Chronicles

Yesterday evening I finished reading “The Gun Seller”, written by actor Hugh Laurie. It should be pointed out, for those that know Laurie from the hit TV show “House, MD” that his roots are in British comedy. One of his most famous parts was playing Bernie Wooster in a version of P. G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and Wooster”. This is poignant to know what the book is like.

The plot synopsis is from School Library Journal, as part of Carol DeAngelo’s blurb:

Thomas Lang, formerly of the Scots Guard and currently a freelance bodyguard/man for hire, is offered an assassination job. He indignantly refuses, attempts to warn the victim, and is soon embroiled in undercover work for the British government, CIA operatives, arms dealers, and terrorists.

Given the Wodehouse influence, and the synopsis, the best general description is “spy spoof” novel. (Though not my words.) When I started reading the book, it was easy to hear Laurie’s voice in the narrative. Quite honestly, that is how I pictured the character of Thomas Lang. It is filled with British wit and humor. As someone that has enjoyed Laurie’s comedic work, I found myself enjoying the prose and narrative quite a lot. But with any debut novel, there are issues.

Two events, or sections of the book don’t have smooth transitions. They both lie within how Lang comes to be working for those that he works with. He first is brought into a scheme with the man who he was first asked to kill, a Mr. Woolf (who’s daughter Lang is falling for). Then the scheme to bring him to work with terrorists. Both are not clear. As well as the lead up to the final chapter. It was not very clear why Lang did what he did. It needed better editing, quite honestly.

The thing that Laurie has going for him in this novel though is his writing style. The spoof part of this novel, and all the issues that Lang deals with (in first person) are very funny and very entertaining. Sometimes his writing style carried through what could have been a very boring passage, or even whole chapters. His characterization was pretty good, though stronger with the British characters. It was all held together though by his writing style. Even with these unclear issues of how or why alliances were being made, I wanted to keep reading because the book was far from boring.

I have seen that Laurie plans on writing another novel. There is a novel called “The Paper Soldier” that is listed on Amazon.Com for pre-order for over a year now. Maybe with the success of “House, MD” he is behind on his writing schedule. When it does come out though, given the promise that his first novel showed, I would be interested in buying it.

Additional note: I found out about this book at an IKEA furniture store of all places. Marcia and I went with David and Catherine on weekend morning to have breakfast there (yes, for those that haven’t gone there, they have a cafeteria that is pretty good). When walking around after, I kept noticing books on shelves with a title written in Swedish and the author’s name Laurie (for Brit comedy fans, they also had a couple of Stephen Fry’s books, too). Finally out of curiosity, I took one down to set ease my mind that it wasn’t Hugh Laurie. But much to my surprise, on the back flap was a picture of him. I eventually found out that it was this novel, and then found a hardback copy, in English, on eBay.