Irvine Welsh – The Blade Artist

The prolific author of Trainspotting is back with a new novel which follows the most disturbing character from that book, Francis Begbie in his new Californian life.

After reading the free sample on the Random House website, it was clear that this is a return to form for Welsh, after his less impressive offerings since the original Trainspotting. And can we just talk about the cover art for a moment? CREEPY. I kid you not, when the giant image file opened in my browser, I had a bit of an involuntary shiver. Again, I say…Creepy.

Anywho…

Here’s the blurb!

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.

Here’s hoping we see Irvine return to that fast paced, drug fuelled, psychotic, trainwreck writing that made Trainspotting such a cult classic. This one is definitely on my wishlist.