Paul Bryant's Reviews > The Son

It was clear the book had been read up to page 149 – crumbs between the pages, the occasional squashed insect – but after page 150 the rest of the book was pristine, the spine was uncreased.

We got a reasonable set of prints from the cover and ran them though the database of usual suspects. We got an immediate hit – they belonged to Paul Bryant, who we knew from a lot of smart aleck stuff on Goodreads.

We picked him up at 11.30 am on Tuesday hanging around Waterstones. He didn’t give us any trouble. We took him downtown and put him in the box, read him his rights. He didn’t want a lawyer. That was nice. We don’t like lawyers much.

He wanted to know why he was there so we explained. We said that we don’t like book reviewers who don’t finish books they review. 149 pages out of 645 is like nothing. He said it’s not nothing it’s 23%. We asked him not to get lippy and explained that we could cuff him if he would like us to. We explained that we don’t think reviewers have any right to have an opinion on something they haven’t read.

He said that in this particular case he had no grudge against the book, unlike many he had previously abandoned. (The records show this guy is a serial abandoner.) He said that he would be very happy to watch the Scandinavian Noir miniseries they will surely make of this book. But he said that whereas on screen the clunky crime clichés of modern thrillers are often successfully sidestepped by the delicious playing of the actors – say, Sophie Grabol as Sarah Lund or Sofia Helin as Saga Noren - on the page they just lie there and die there. So you get lines like

Are you telling me that you allowed yourself to be outwitted, Goldsrud? How far did he get?

We said that when you read a Joe Nesbo book you aren’t expecting William Faulkner. He said that all due respect he knew that but even so.

We issued him with an official warning – stop trying to be popular, stick to your fancy arse Don DeLillos and Cormac McCarthys. You know what’s best for you. Also, finish your books. Next time we won’t be wearing kid gloves.

He said that line could have come right out of The Son. That’s when he had the minor accident, a report of which has already been filed.