Dead Girl Walking - Chris Brookmyre

Book Details

Country: Scotland
Language: English
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Little Brown
Publication Date: 2015


Fictional Artist: Savage Earth Heart
Genre: Rock
Country: UJK
Real World Analogue: Although the band's name comes from a song on the Waterboys' debut, Brookmyre tweeted that if readers wished to know how Savage Earth Heart sound, they should imagine Jimmy Eat World's Heart is Hard to Find being performed by Karine Polwart.

Jacket Blurb: 

Life is dangerous when you have everything to lose. Famous, beautiful and talented, Heike Gunn has the world at her feet. Then, one day, she simply vanishes.

Meanwhile, journalist Jack Parlabane has lost everything: his career, his marriage, his self-respect. A call for help from an old friend offers a chance for redemption — but only if he can find out what happened to Heike. Pursued by those who would punish him for past crimes, Parlabane enters the secret-filled world of Heike’s band, Savage Earth Heart, a group at breaking point. Each of its members seems to be hiding something, not least its newest recruit Monica Halcrow, whose alleged relationship with Heike has become a public obsession.

Monica’s own story, however, reveals a far darker truth. Fixated on Heike from day one, she has been engulfed by paranoia, jealousy and fear, as she discovers the hidden price of fame. From Berlin to Barcelona, from the streets of Milan to remote Scottish islands, Parlabane must dredge up old secrets to find Heike before it’s too late.

Spoiler Free Review:

Brookmyre's unorthodox investigative-journalist Jack Parlabane has starred in five novels prior to this one, but as a more comic character. Since dropping the 'opher' from his first name, Brookmyre's novels have been grittier and less blackly humourous, and this Parlabane is one that's smarting from a good kicking from being hung out to dry at Leveson and a relationship break up. Chastened, humbled and desperate provides a new angle for the lead character, and it works well.

Parlabane is hired to investigate the disappearance of the lead singer of a rapidly-rising folk-rock band, Savage Earth Heart. The book alternates chapters of Parlabane's investigation with chapters from the blog of  the band's new fiddle player Monica. Monica as the wide-eyed ingénue, trying to get to grips with the change from the classical to the rock world, provides the reader's route into the world of the touring rock band.

Through Monica's eyes we learn about the sex and drugs and rock and roll on the road. The rock and roll is done pretty well. Rather than compose lyrics for the band and demand we admire their profundity, or go into great detail about which mode the musicians are in, Brookmyre pulls out specific incidents from the gigs to concentrate on, preferring to make it about the human interaction in the midst of music making. 

Pre-disappearance lead singer Heike is rather puritanical about drugs, and while there is drug-taking, it's always pretty furtive even when taking place within the band environment. There are established plot reasons for Heike's attitude, but it doesn't ring entirely true.

As for the sex, I have to be a little careful here less I blow a significant plot point. We see a band member ensnaring women with well-honed lines and cynical ease, but not only are we painfully aware how joyless these liaisons are, but the band member seems not to be enjoying it either.

This is not a band enjoying the supposed benefits of its popularity, no matter how decadent the reader might think them, but one whose pleasures seem tainted by self-consciousness and guilt.

The entourage that surrounds the band on tour is a little unusual; they operate very much at a distance and seemingly corporately. While the music industry has undoubtedly become more corporate over the past few decades, that's not really how bands tour. There seems to be no one whose role is to take care of the talent. No one to massage their egos and keep the investment happy.

Given this is a band that's on the up and up, this doesn't quite seem right. There might be a comedown ahead, but it shouldn't be kicking in quite so soon. Even if there are reasons why not everything is operating quite as it should. In interviews, Brookmyre stated he wanted to examine "the media's predatory attitude to women, especially female celebrities in rock 'n' roll".

Parlabane's search for Heike, particularly the action pieces based in Berlin, work well, and the reader is both thrilled by his daring exploits as they are trying to work out what's happened to Heike. Fiddle player Monica is an intriguing character that the reader really cares about, and her complex relationship with her band leader is interesting and convincing.

Brookmyre's plotting is as tight as ever, and the book is eminently readable. While there are some wrong notes in the portrayal of the band, none are unforgiveable. I'm aware I've made a few negative comments, but I really enjoyed this book, as I have all of Brookmyre's previous works, but I must end on one more criticism. Savage Earth Heart feels like a band out of time. You could just about imagine a folk rock band making it big during the late 80s, early 90s, but in 2016..?