Contract by Simon Spurrier

Occasionally, a novel comes along that hooks me so completely, that draws me into its world so utterly, that invests me so much, I sit down and don't get up until I've read it all the way through. Admittedly this only ever happens with thrillers of a certain length but, still, its a rare and wonderful thing.

Contract by Simon Spurrier grabbed me on the first page and dragged me to the very end in one glorious sitting. I didn't struggle.

In terms of plot, all I'm willing to say is that its the story of Michael Point, a hitman, whose hits start coming back to life.

Its one of those modern crime novels, written in first person, ladling out the smart wit and pop culture references with ceaseless swish. It seems entirely aware of itself as such and goes beyond the occasional wry wink at the reader to happily embrace its self conciousness. The first few chapters come across as little more than a lot of macho bluster, boasting, flaunting.

Michael Point is not an ex-SAS hard man from a Chris Ryan novel. He is not a reasonably likeable conservative with lots of guns and morals from a Tom Clancy. He's English, middle-class and well-educated and he just kills people for a living.

I'd read the whole indifferent generation Y hitman thing before in A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre and, after a while, although it was entertaining and well written - and, at points, very funny - I was beginning to wonder where it could possibly go.
It had taken this idea I was familiar with and seemed happy to casually apply it to Fight Club's structure and style, which is fine but not exactly outstanding.

And then... Michael Point's well ordered life begins to break apart. The beauty of it is, the writing itself fragments. You see that, in many ways, Point is acting a part. He is trying to be this cool, suave young man who makes a living shooting people with bullets full of heroin. He is trying to be Tyler Durden but, steadily, the façade bursts apart at the seams.

To say that Michael is an unreliable narrator is to miss the, ah, point somewhat. He is presenting himself as he wants you to see him. He is trying to seduce you with how wonderfully clever he is. I don't believe he categorically misleads the reader - though, it would probably require a second reading to judge - but facts are coloured with his arrogance, his hitman face.

The incredible thing is, from what I gather, Spurrier, in writing Contract, has attempted to make his hitman protagonist as true to life as possible. Michael Point and the murders he commits are supposed to be plausibly, factually based. The level of research, in certain places, verges on the morbid - and the extreme realism beautifully contrasts with the fantastic elements of the plot. That word contrasts is important. I did not write complements because, in many ways, the real and the fantastic do not mesh comfortably.

Point, upon killing a man who then promptly comes back to life (and is then killed again), immediately follows through with his post-kill ritual. He goes to a club and picks up a suitable young woman and has sex with her. The club comes across as particularly surreal in the ocntext of such a fantastic occurrence.

This was the point that I began to wonder if Point was really seeing what he described. Were his hits really coming back to life?

Another part of Point's ritual is to go and meet with an old friend to talk about nothing, about banalities. She is really the only contact he has with a "real person." Occasionally, there are chapters taken from this character's diary and they cast Point in a different light. They dissect his presentational self, attempt to get the core within. They show that Point actually talks in this ridiculous, cyclic splurge of extended metaphor.

By the end of Contract, we have made our own judgements of Michael Point and, for once, it is a judgement not guided by the author. There are ambiguities that the reader is required to work out for themselves.

So, go. Decide.