Clara’s Verdict
Comic crime is a narrow tightrope, because the jokes undercut the jeopardy and the jeopardy strands the jokes, and most attempts fall off within fifty pages. The Satsuma Complex does not, and the evidence is not my opinion but a prize: it won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction in 2023, which is the award that separates genuinely funny novels from famous people who have written a book. Bob Mortimer is a comedian, and this is a proper novel.
Six hours and fifty-two minutes makes it the most companionable listen in this genre I have come across in a while, and it is presently high in the Audible UK charts. There is one significant gap in the listing that I will address directly in a moment, and it concerns who reads it.
About the Audiobook
Gary Thorn introduces himself with the flat self-assessment that governs the whole book: “To describe me as anonymous would be unfair but to notice me other than in passing would be a rarity.” He is thirty, a legal assistant at a firm of solicitors in London, and his one recent attempt at romance, in his own phrasing, “blew up in my face and smacked my arse with a fish slice.”
The plot begins in a pub. Gary goes for a pint with a work acquaintance called Brendan, Brendan leaves early, and Gary meets a girl whose name he never catches and falls for her regardless. She disappears without saying goodbye, leaving behind only the book she had been reading, which is called The Satsuma Complex. Then Brendan goes missing, and Gary needs to find the woman he has taken to calling Satsuma in order to get some answers. What follows is a quest through the estates and pie shops of South London.
The Observer put it best, describing a much loved comic proving adept at noirish fiction in a debut whose surrealist humour sets it apart, while the Sunday Times settled for “Funny, clever and sweet”. Both are right, and the surrealism is load-bearing rather than decorative. Gary Thorn gives the series its name and this is where it begins, so you are in the right place, and one reviewer here has already bought the follow-up.
The Narration
Now the gap, and it is a consequential one. Nobody is named as the reader anywhere on this listing, and for this book in particular that is the single most important unknown on the page. Bob Mortimer’s comic identity is inseparable from his delivery, from the pauses, the mild bafflement, the sense of a man recounting something that has genuinely puzzled him. A performance in that register would be worth a great deal. A capable but conventional reading would still work, because the writing is properly funny on its own, but it would be a different and lesser thing.
Whoever reads it faces a real technical problem. The book is narrated in the first person by a man whose defining quality is that he is unremarkable, and the temptation is to play the flatness for laughs. That kills it. Gary has to be sincere, so that the absurdity around him lands without his help, and the imaginary conversations with a squirrel that one reviewer flagged only work if they are delivered entirely straight.
Before you commit, find out who is reading and listen to a minute of it. On this title more than most, the answer will determine your experience.
What Readers Say
Comic fiction is a category where readers who do not find something funny tend to rate it harshly rather than shrug, which makes 4.3 across 22,550 ratings a solid result. The reviews cluster around a shared observation, which is that Mortimer’s authorial voice is fully present on the page.
The sharpest of them comes from a four-star reviewer who arrived as a fan of the comedian and stayed as a reader of the novel:
There are a few moments of silliness (including imaginary conversations with a squirrel) but the story is still compelling
She warmed to Gary quickly, which is the whole game, and remained genuinely interested in how the mystery would resolve rather than merely enduring the plot between jokes. A five-star reviewer called it “a great read and highly amusing, loved this one and bought the follow up book to read”, which is the most reliable endorsement any first-in-series can attract. Another praised the quirky humour as being only to be expected from Mortimer. The mild reservation, where one appears, concerns the silliness quotient, and readers who want their crime fiction straight will feel it early.
Who Should Listen?
People who already enjoy Mortimer’s television and podcast persona are the obvious audience, and they will not be disappointed, but the more interesting recommendation is to readers who have never seen him at all. The Wodehouse Prize is not awarded for celebrity, and this is a well-made mystery with an unusually likeable narrator at its centre. Fans of Richard Osman’s gentler crime, or of anyone who mixes murder with genuine warmth, will find the register familiar.
The surrealism is the dividing line, so be honest with yourself about it. A protagonist who converses with a squirrel is either a delight or a deal-breaker, and there is no middle position. Anyone wanting a taut procedural or a genuinely frightening thriller has come to the wrong pub. And since this listing does not confirm who narrates, treat the sample as compulsory rather than optional before you commit six and a half hours to Gary Thorn’s company.
