Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh. But his fiancée Trudi is only interested in planning their wedding, and soon Lennox cast adrift, alone in Florida. A coke-fuelled binge brings him into contact with another victim of sexual predation, ten-year-old Tianna, and Lennox flees across the state with his terrified charge, determined to protect her at any cost. But can Lennox trust his own instincts? And can he handle Tianna, while still trying to get to grips with the Edinburgh murder?
Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences and the secrets that hold them together into their thirties.As we follow their lives from the 70's into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don't hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.
In 'Rattlesnakes', three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, held captive by armed Mexicans; in 'The DOGS of Lincoln Park', a mysterious Korean chef may or may not have something to do with the disappearance of a socialite's pooch; an English bar owner battles to keep all his balls in the air on the Costa Brava; a film biographer becomes a piece of movie memorabilia himself in 'Miss Arizona'; and in the 'Kingdom of Fife'; an ex-jockey and table-football star of Cowdenbeath takes on the charms of Jenni Cahill and her remarkable jodhpurs...
At Edinburgh's Department of Environmental Health, hard-drinking, womanising officer Danny Skinner wants to uncover secrets: 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs', secrets he believes might just help him understand his self-destructive impulses. But the arrival of the virginal, model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby at the department provokes an uncharacteristic response in Skinner, and threatens to throw his mission off course. Consumed by loathing for his nemesis, Skinner enacts a curse, and when Kibby contracts a horrific and debilitating mystery virus, Skinner understands that their destinies are supernaturally bound, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma.
Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance. Will their ardour fizzle and die or will it ignite and blaze like a thousand suns? Ecstasy follows them and others through the backstreets of Edinburgh, stifling suburban sitting rooms and the bright lights of London. Exhilarating and dazzling, this is Welsh at his very best.
The characters in this extraordinary book are often - on the surface - depraved, vicious, cowardly and manipulative, but their essential humanity is never undermined. Two professors of philosophy turn pugilists; Leith removal men become the objects of desire for Hollywood goddesses; God turns Boab Coyle into a house-fly; and in the novella, 'A Smart Cunt', the drug-addled young hero spins off on a collision course with his past. The Acid House is a bizarre, disturbing and hilarious collection from one of the most uncompromising and original writers around.
Roy Strang is engaged in a strange quest in a surrealist South Africa. His mission is to eradicate an evil predator-scavenger bird, the marabou stork, before it drives away the peace-loving flamingo from the picturesque Lake Torto. But behind this world lies another: the world of Roy's bizarre family, the Scottish housing scheme in which he grew up, his mundane job, a disastrous emigration to Africa, and his youthful life of brutality with a gang of soccer casuals. As one world crashes into the other, this potentially charming story of ornithological goodwill mutates into a filthy tale of violence, abuse and redemption.
Now a major film directed by Danny Boyle reuniting the cast of TrainspottingYears on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realise his ambitions within the Adult industries, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton. Still scheming, still scamming, Sick Boy and Renton soon find out that they have unresolved issues to address concerning the unhinged Begbie, the troubled, drug-addled Spud, but, most of all, with each other.T2 Trainspotting was previously published as Porno.
In 'A Fault on the Line', a Hearts-Hibernian football match is on television, and a Sunday afternoon trip to a beer garden with the family is an unwelcome distraction for former trackman Malky. The day ends badly when he decides to hurry them home in time for kick-off.In 'Elspeth's Boyfriend', it's Christmas day in Leith, and Frank is suffering from the previous evening's excesses. He doesn't take kindly to his sister's fancy new boyfriend. Frank's grumblings about the choice of television programmes develop into a more serious confrontation when a spot of unwanted physical contact causes tempers to flare.In 'Kissing and Making Up', a drunk seeking an outlet for his frustrations heads to a strip club in the early afternoon. There, however, he only manages to make things worse.Part of the Storycuts series, these three stories were previously published in the collection Reheated Cabbage.
A homophobic Scottish labourer in London dies, and is condemned to confront his prejudices in the afterlife. A story about how tragedy can be casually courted when we ignore mental and physical cues, and turn our backs on the past.Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection Reheated Cabbage.
In the tropics of Miami, retired Scottish schoolteacher Albert Black mourns his wife of forty-one years. His grief and inability to connect with his son's Americanised family combine to undermine the Christian ethos that has governed his life. Dejected, he summons a final rallying of his principles and seeks out a confrontation with a former pupil. Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection Reheated Cabbage.
Cigarette-addicted aliens have Midlothian under surveillance. A jaded police constable, a pregnant teenager with a UFO obsession and a gang of youths bent on a violent scam are shaken up when a caravan of travellers arrives in Rosewell, and the local mechanic's long-lost brother turns up in some peculiar company.Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection Reheated Cabbage.
Calum's evening gets off to nostalgic start when a childhood friend, now a junkie, wanders into the bar. His drinking partner, Crooky, has procured some hits of acid, and the trio head off in search of a party. However, their trip goes badly wrong and the morning brings with it a bleak comedown.Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection Reheated Cabbage.
Will Jason King ever charm the young rider Jenni Cahill and gain long-anticipated access to her jodhpurs?Part of the Storycuts series, this story was previously published in the collection If You Liked School, You'll Love Work.
Raymond Wilson Butler, a director and writer down on his luck, is struggling to write a biography of his hero, the late filmmaker Halliday. He conducts a series of interviews with his widow Yolanda, an overweight woman living alone in the desert in Arizona with a penchant for taxidermy. Raymond knows she is an eccentric but nothing can prepare him for Yolanda's revelation of the true story of the life and death of her late husband.Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection If You Liked School, You'll Love Work.
Three young women - competitive, bitchy and moneyed - have lunch together at their favourite Korean restaurant every Friday. When the friendly chef from the restaurant moves into the same building as one of the girls, she strikes up a friendship with him. But the disappearance of her dog sparks suspicion of the Korean chef's motives, and his culinary ambitions. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection If You Liked School, You'll Love Work.
BEFORE TRAINSPOTTING CAME SKAGBOYSThe Number One BestsellerMark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a bright future. But there's no room for him in the 1980s and when his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control. The way out is heroin. It's no better for his friends - Spud Murphy is laid off from his job, Tommy Lawrence finds himself sucked into a life of petty crime, violence and the world of the psychotic Franco Begbie. Only Sick Boy seems to ride the current, scamming and hustling his way through it all. Exhilarating and moving, Skagboys charts their journey from likely lads to young addicts in a decade which changed Britain forever.
Mickey Baker, an ex-pat English bar owner living in Spain, returns to England to see his daughter and mother but must face the wrath of his ex-wife, a woman who pulls no punches. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection If You Liked School, You'll Love Work.
Shortlisted for the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fictionA rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, 'Juice' Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane 'Bawbag'?Can Terry discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison?Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker?And, crucially, will Terry be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without... A DECENT RIDE?A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back on home turf, leaving us in the capable hands of one of his most compelling and popular characters, 'Juice' Terry Lawson, and introducing another bound for cult status, Wee Jonty MacKay: a man with the genitals and brain of a donkey. In his funniest, filthiest book yet, Irvine Welsh celebrates an un-reconstructed misogynist hustler - a central character who is shameless but also, oddly, decent -and finds new ways of making wild comedy out of fantastically dark material, taking on some of the last taboos. So fasten your seatbelts, because this is one ride that could certainly get a little bumpy...
Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life - and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he's a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary.But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies - and, most alarmingly, his former self - Francis seems to have other ideas.When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband's violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly. The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel - ultra violent but curiously redemptive - and it marks the return of one of modern fiction's most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.
*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge. Sick Boy and Spud, who have agendas of their own, are intrigued to learn that their old friends are back in town, but when they enter the bleak world of organ-harvesting, things start to go so badly wrong. Lurching from crisis to crisis, the four men circle each other, driven by their personal histories and addictions, confused, angry - so desperate that even Hibs winning the Scottish Cup doesn't really help. One of these four will not survive to the end of this book. Which one of them is wearing Dead Men's Trousers? Fast and furious, scabrously funny and weirdly moving, this is a spectacular return of the crew from Trainspotting.
Irvine Welsh, 'poet laureate of the chemical generation', exposes the seamy underbelly of rave's utopian dream. Lloyd, our permanently pilled-up protagonist, pushes his weekends to breaking point and beyond in this frazzled trip through Scottish clubland. He experiences the vertiginous uppers and downers of the Second Summer of Love, dabbles in a spot of disc jockeying and closes in, gradually, on some kind of redemption...Selected from Irvine Welsh's novel Ecstasy.VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:
Home by Salman Rushdie
Dreams by Sigmund Freud
Eating by Nigella Lawson
Work by Joseph Heller
In Reheated Cabbage you can enjoy Christmas dinner with Begbie and discover how aliens addicted to Embassy Regal have Midlothian under surveillance. You will meet a husband who values a televised Hibs v Hearts game more than his wife's life and see two guys fighting over a beautiful girl agree - after a few pills and pints of lager - that their friendship is actually more important. And you will be delighted to welcome back 'Juice' Terry Lawson, and to watch what happens when he meets his old nemesis under the strobe-lights of a Miami Beach nightclub.
