This book is a book where one of the main characters is a geeky Browncoat – tautology, yes – it has a Duke Nukem Forever reference (A game now in production for ten years). And it’s about unsinkable rubber ducks. Well, kind of. It’s about mysticism and science and geekery and provability and people and research and jam and history and woo. Also, it’s funny in traditional Brookmyre style, it’s scottish in tone and language, and it will make you want to kill the author – but in a good way – on no less than three occasions, possibly more.
I like Brookmyre’s books, you should try one to see if you like them too. This is a good one for that purpose. All the characters save one are new – the narrator is a reoccurring from previous books – but you don’t need to know his history, so that’s fine.