Be My Enemy, or Fuck This for a Game of Soldier is the fourth book in the Jack Parlabane series by Christopher Brookmyre.

Plot:
When Jack Parlabane gets an invitation to attend the ultimate team-building experience and then write about it in his paper, nobody would have thought that “ultimate” was to be taken literally. While the participants are growing as a team by shooting each other with paint ball guns, they stumble upon a group of soldiers – who unfortunately start shooting for real. And that’s when the trouble only starts.

I really enjoyed Be My Enemy. It made me laugh out loud on several occasions. It’s also pretty gory, probably the Brookmyre book with the most bloodshed so far. But once you’ve read about somebody accidentally beheading himself, there’s just no going back.

If I’d read the Brookmyre books according to publication date (instead of the Parlabane books first), I could now point out that Tim Vale, one of the main characters in One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, shows up again in Be My Enemy and you’d all be like “that is so cool.” Unfortunately, you haven’t met Tim yet (unless you’re a Brookmyre fan yourself), so it’s not that exciting.

Anyway, you know who Parlabane takes with him on this motivational team-building weekend? Tim Vale! That is so cool! [Tim was already mentioned in Country of the Blind, too.]

At the start of the book, Be My Enemy seemed to be a pretty political book again (this time tackling terrorism), but Brookmyre actually drops that rather quickly. I mean, it’s not entirely without politics, but it’s pretty much the least political book so far. [Which is neither bad nor good, just an observation.]

What can I tell you – it’s another awesome Brookmyre book, with his special brand of evil humor that I quite enjoy.