Book review: No Good Deed, by John Niven

About a third of the way through this book, in the middle of a scene of snort-in-public comic excellence, I realised I was going to have a hard time trying to enjoy what was coming next. By this point in the story, John Niven’s flawed but likeable restaurant critic protagonist, a Scot-made-good-in-London called Allan Grainger, had already found his old Ayrshire school friend Craig Carmichael begging on the street in Soho; had already offered to take him drinking; and had already given him a room in his luxurious family home in Buckinghamshire as a way of helping him get back on his feet. The two men’s friendship seemed to have been effortlessly rekindled, yet Niven had dropped just enough sly hints (and there are also one or two not-so-sly hints on the book jacket, not to mention the title) to suggest that Craig, once a famous musician with the world at his feet, was in fact on a mission to royally shaft his Good Samaritan.