No Good Deed

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.