The Cut

Millie Spark was working in the 1990s as a special effects make-up artist when she was discovered in bed one morning next to Marcus, her lover, who had been stabbed to death. After a bungled defence and herrefusal to accept responsibility for the death, Millie ended up serving 25 years in prison, and as the book opens she has just been released.

Millie has been offered a room by Vivian, sister of the ex-partner of Millie’s brother Alastair, recently dead of a heart attack. Vivian decides that her household of women in their 70s would be enlivened by a student, and Jerry arrives to take up the offer. Jerry is bright but has difficulty in believing someone from his background can do well at college and is struggling to maintain his confidence.

Intervening chapters of back story explain events immediately prior to Millie’s arrest. At the time she was working in Italy on a horror film that has never been released and after several deaths of people associated with the project it has a spooky reputation. Of interest is the circumstance that a now senior politician and the offspring of a media mogul were involved with the film.

After her release Millie is initially daunted by the challenge of making decisions, but is revitalised when she chances upon a photograph identifying Marcus as a policeman with a different name from the one she knew. Jerry, a devotee of horror films, proves to be the perfect companion in her investigation, with a facility for communications that Millie has never acquired. The pair take off for the continent to gather clues as to what really happened in the past, but it emerges that there are enemies on their track who will stop at nothing to prevent exposure.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable tale and a few remarkable coincidences in the set-up are easily overlooked. Millie and Jerry are well filled-out and make believable and interesting protagonists. |At the start, Millie is cowed by years of subservience, but quickly shows herself to be a woman of spirit and unexpected resources. Jerry bears the guilt of a thieving past under pressure from a bully, but is fundamentally decent, providing a sub-plot to be satisfactorily resolved.

The adventure that the two undertake is full of twists, deadly encounters, and unexpected friends. They are perhaps unlikely partners, but their common experience and interest in film – horror films in particular – provide a special flavour to their language, and much of the time this is within the compass of any cinema fan. Chris Brookmyre takes every opportunity to keep the audience guessing, making this a very entertaining read.