The Killing Joke - Anthony Horowitz

When I was about 10, Anthony Horowitz was my literary hero. He was the author of the excellent Diamond Brothers books “The Falcon’s Malteeser”, “Public Enemy Number Two” and “South by Southeast”. Not only that, but he wrote many of the scripts for my favourite TV program at the time, “Robin of Sherwood”, in which the gorgeous Michael Praed romped about the forest with his flowing, glossy mullet to a Clannad soundtrack. When my sister lent me a book Anthony had written for adults I was childishly excited...

Well, no real life book was ever going to live up to those impossibly high expectations!

The premise of the book is that a man overhears a sick joke in a pub and wonders who makes these things up. So he tries to trace the joke back to its origin. It turns out that all our nation's jokes are created by a shady government organisation which is willing to kill to protect itself.

(Let me take this opportunity to reassure any readers that not all jokes are produced by the government. Some of my friends and I make up our own. This is a lot like making your own jam/cakes/clothes in that the finished product is a bit shaky, but you get a tremendous sense of achievement. Here's an example: What's Dr Who's favourite readymeal? Gallifraybentos pies! As you can probably tell, I've yet to reach the stage when anyone else repeats one of my jokes.)

Anyway, the book putters along with the hapless hero being hunted by an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman, framed for a series of dwarf murders, falling in love and finally escaping from the villains clutches at the last minute. The book also seems to have the message that although many aspects of jokes are unpleasant or politically incorrect, a life without humour would be truly unbearable.

I am not quite sure how best to express my disappointment with this book; it's not really bad, but it occasionally feels hastily lashed together, as if the author were using one of those “Solutions for Fiction Writers” books. For example: Why would someone be that offended by a sick joke? OK, let's say it was about his Mum. But why would he be a struggling out-of-work actor if his Mum's famous enough to have jokes told about her death? Let's say she gave him up for adoption – that's good enough for Gilbert and Sulivan and it's good enough for us! Except that it isn't quite. Horowitz's adult fiction,like my jokes, needs a bit more work.