Quite Ugly One Morning is the book that made Christopher Brookmyre a star in his native Britain, establishing his distinctive, scabrously humorous style and breakneck, hell-for-leather narrative pacing. The novel that won the inaugural First Blood Award for the best debut crime novel in the United Kingdom is now available in America for the first time, and comic crime writing on this side of the Atlantic may never be the same. Quite Ugly One Morning introduces Brookmyre's signature protagonist, the hard-partying, wisecracking investigative journalist Jack Parlabane, who is not afraid to bend the laws of the land (or even the laws of gravity) to get to the truth. Parlabane is nursing a horrific hangover when he stumbles across the corpse of the scion of a wealthy Edinburgh medical family. Determined to get to the bottom of the murder himself, he quickly becomes enmeshed in a wild adventure that will take him through all the strata of Edinburgh society and into some dangerous (and hysterical) situations. Laced with acerbic wit and crackling dialogue, Quite Ugly One Morning is a wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller. "Very violent, very funny. A comedy with a political edge, which you take gleefully in one gulp." -- Literary Review "The plot crackles along with confident gusto and intelligence.... An assured debut by a talented writer." -- The Times (London)

Christopher Brookmyre was born in Glasgow in 1968, and has worked as a journalist in London, Los Angeles and Edinburgh, contributing to Screen International, the Scotsman, the Evening News and The Absolute Game. In 1976 he became a St Mirren supporter. He was at the Hammarby game. This may explain a great deal.

Quite Ugly One Morning (1996) was published to popular and critical acclaim, and won the inaugural First Blood Award for the best first crime novel of the year. This success was followed up with Country of the Blind (1997), and the author’s latest novel, Not the End of the World (1998). Christopher Brookmyre is now working on his next book One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night which will be published by Abacus in 1999.