COMPLICITY was published in 1993.
It was adapted for film in 2000. Written by Bryan Elsley and directed by Gavin Millar, it starred Jonny Lee Miller, Keeley Hawes, Brian Cox, Bill Paterson and Sam West.
A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page then catch up with the latest from your mystery source... in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.
Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find that the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening right now. And Cameron might just know more about it than he'd care to admit...
Iain described it as “a bit like The Wasp Factory, except without the happy ending and redeeming air of cheerfulness.”
Iain said “[Complicity] was written because I thought The Crow Road was far too cosy and I was starting to react against that. I thought, ‘I’m approaching my forties and people are going to think... that’s Banks over the hill, he can’t write anything dangerous any more... I’ll show them what’s dangerous.’ I had all these violent deaths and bizarrely inventive murders which I couldn’t find a home for... couldn’t do myself! And I did want to write something about Thatcherism and the Eighties. I had wanted to write a whodunnit for a long time, and it all came together nicely. Also, I was keen on doing something set in Edinburgh, which I thought hadn’t been written about enough and really deserved it. It’s a strange city in a lot of ways with all its wee wynds...”
Italian cover
Iain again, “When the world stops being violent, I’ll stop writing about violence. I think we have to admit that violence, or at least its portrayal, can be exciting, and cathartic. Humour makes the violence more real, in a way; otherwise it does become like the standard view of pornography; unable to laugh at itself. There is also the point that almost all narrative art is about conflict, and violence is a heightened form of conflict (and war a heightened form of violence). To take an analogy from painting, I will freely confess that I am not a miniaturist, or particularly subtle in my use of colour; just give me a decent-sized wall and a bucket of red paint...”
