No Good Deed
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Average rating3.3
***Now available for preorder- KILL 'EM ALL, the stunning sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDS*** The viciously funny novel by John Niven, bestselling author of Kill Your Friendsand Straight White Male. What do you do when a homeless man knows your name? How about when he turns out to be a friend you haven't seen in twenty years? Do you treat him to a hot meal and see him on his way? Give him a wad of middle-class guilt money? Or take him in and get him back on his feet? For Alan, there's no question - only natural that he'd want to see his old mate Craig off the streets, even if only for a few nights, and into some clean clothes. But what if the successful life you've made for yourself - good job, happy marriage, lovely kids, grand Victorian house (you did well out of the property boom, thank you very much) - is one that that your old pal would quite like to have too? Even if it means taking it from you? Following the divergent lives of two childhood friends, No Good Deedis a funny and painful examination of friendship, the strange currents of ambition, loathing, pity and affection that flow between people over the decades, and of men getting older as they fail and succeed.
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John Niven is a terrifically entertaining writer. Working around the music business, I laughed and winced at Kill Your Friends in equal measures, The Amateurs literally made me fall off the sofa laughing (to be fair, I was sitting a bit funny), and The Second Coming's description of Jesus playing Born To Run on American Idol (yes, really) is one of the best bits of writing about the elevating and exhilarating power of rock music I know. He does sometimes misfire though - I didn't care much for the hackneyed boozy lecturer of Single White Male at all. No Good Deed isn't quite a misfire, but it's not up there with his best. I'l skip outlining the plot, you can all read the synopsis, but what it all comes down to is the relationship between two men at opposite ends of Boethius' wheel. It's an enjoyable read that I lapped up over two days, but I felt somewhat let down by the ending. Obviously veering close to spoiler land here, but the motivation revealed at the climax is a thin thing, and it didn't convince me at all. It's a shame because that retrospectively coloured my experience of the rest of the book. I'd been enjoying it a lot, but it suddenly all became insubstantial and pointless.
