Certainly not a magic bullet for insomnia, indeed, WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is the whatever, so be warned, do not start this book as bedtime reading if you want to have a good night’s rest.
With a prologue as slick as a double O Seven pre-title sequence, WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT explodes off the page, shrapnel shards of excitement, the exotic and the screamingly funny embedding the imagination, spurring the narrative.
Allusions to James Bond are peppered liberally throughout the story, not surprising as the writer, Charlie Higson, is the author of the Young Bond series of bestsellers. WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT, however, is definitely not geared for young readers.
Set on the island of Corfu, WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT details the rescue mission of a young girl caught up in a web of sex trafficking spun by a narcissistic millionaire. In a plot timely ripped from contemporary headlines, Charlie Higson fashions a riveting novel of intrigue, treachery and murder with a slew of unforgettable characters.
There’s the megalomaniac millionaire, Julian Hepworth, a ghastly groomer of girls and gross manipulator of image. His too cool for school veneer hardly masks a born to rule ghoul. His entourage consists of trophy wife, Pixie, fast approaching her use by date of thirty, and his chief of security, Ray, who has philosophical quibbles with himself regarding his level of psychopathy and how it fits with his Christian faith.
The central hero of WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is McIntyre, a can do extraction specialist, aided by Aimee, and Pike and Sarah.
McIntyre is the consummate professional, a methodical planner and expert in creating a deep cover.
He has an easy camaraderie with Aimee with whom he has shared a number of capers previously, one in particular hinted at that went perilously pear shaped. It has obviously cemented their working relationship though, forged on the anvil of life and death exploits.
Pike and Sarah are an inspired creation, global seafarers with landlubber pasts that are as colourful as their present occupation as wanderlusters with an eye for adventure. There’s a brilliant set piece involving these two that resembles an old swashbuckling movie, complete with rapier repartee, on deck and below deck derring-do, marvellous tension and comic release.
WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is a magnificent thrill with every member of the company – heinous or heroic – worth meeting.
Quite impossible to set aside, WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is rampagingly written with loads of highly educated wit. Higson takes to present day society with a satire sabre, cutting the pretentious, the privileged and the posers down to size in a sway of perfectly calibrated absurdism.
There’s an impish insiders knowledge of media and how television production works and there’s a literary genuflection to 007 as McIntyre masquerades as an MI6 officer called Horowitz, a delicious nod and wink to the current James Bond continuation novels.
A comic caper of knavery, conspiracy and swashbuckling adventure, WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT is irresistibly entertaining.
WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT by Charlie Higson is published by Little, Brown through Hachette
