The Gun Seller

The Gun Seller, or how dear now world-wide famous Hugh Laurie has come out his manuscript. Thanks to the success of his American adventure House MD, we have become acquainted with another face of Hugh Laurie. He is an actor, a humorist and now a writer. More exactly he is so from 1996, but it is hard to get so widely published in France when you are almost unknown. Celebrity definitely helps. I must admit I started this book frankly biased as I have been already fond of this man for many years. But now that I have finished my reading I can say that I liked it even if some points are debatable. 

To put it in a nutshell, Thomas Lang, a former military man and humble citizen of the crown, is at first engulfed in a story of arm dealers he does not fully understand. Then he will only act for the care of the girl he is attracted to, Sarah Woolf whose father tried to hire Thomas. And in the end, Thomas will bluff readers in his actions. Actually, Thomas has been hired to kill Alexander Woolf. Being a good man and not an assassin, he tries to find this Mr Woolf to warn him against his enemies. And from that point on will begin his adventures. All in all, he will have to deal with the American CIA, the British Department of Defense, a terrorist group and one or two influential arm dealers. 

It is a good start but it could have been better. Easy to say, isn't it? I think that some passages are somewhat muddled. I must admit that I was quite confused and lost a few times. In some cases it is on purpose, that is for sure, and this confusion is equivalent to cinema plots when we have to wait until the end to fully understand the true part of characters. The author had many good ideas but not as well handled in the story has he could have done. He leaves sometimes the reader puzzled with his protagonist and what the latter is doing. Even though not telling much may be a good device, here this way of building his intrigue is not satisfactory enough. Apart from the plot, The Gun Seller proves to be original in Hugh Laurie's writing style. With Laurie's roles in our mind, we cannot but see his character in his writing style : witty, ironic and cynical. Everything we like nowadays. It is pleasant to read if you do not attach too much importance to details.