Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle

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If you ask me to place the book in some type of genre, I’d say it's a dark and humorous murder mystery but also quirky and unique. I thoroughly enjoyed this slightly surreal and complicated thriller, where everything is viewed through the prism of which ever drugs our protagonist Felix happens to have ingested at any particular time. The reason the book is a three star is because it just tried to do too much, the plot itself became a little lost and there seemed almost too much to it.

With Trainspotting-esque drug-fuelled frenzies, this has it all: complex and hilarious characters, Glaswegian political undertones and of course, the thrilling. It's a crime thriller but it very much reflects Boyle's previous tv and stand up work, in that it's not your conventional crime thriller. Ultimately though, the book lives and dies on the strength of the comedy, which is very good indeed, I had moments where I struggled to continue, but by the end, in service to the weird plot, the comic side of it is somewhat suppressed and it ends up slightly on the unsatisfying side, there's not enough else to it to make it a thoroughly satisfying book despite it being a very good book. Meantime is a tremendous book: a detective story full of twists and turns that is as beautifully written as it is darkly comic. However, he praised Chong's dialogue on Chinese stereotypes and British imperialism as the best monologue in the book and found the history of Felix's addiction "remarkably moving" as it provides "pathos that overrides the usual sarcasm and snarl".The threshold for fame in Scotland is quite low, so she could have been anything from an MSP to someone who’d streaked at a football match. The book, according to Dugdale, had elements of whodunit fiction and some content resembles a stand-up comedy monologue.

a political comedy book, Scotland's Jesus (2013); [4] and a political essay, The Future of British Politics (2020). I am sure it will be a hit not only because of the fan base behind Boyle but because it will be lots of peoples cup of tea just not mine. She reveals Brond and Chong's plan – discovering Felix's closeness to Marina, they sent Donnie to live in his building.Boyle said on Twitter in September 2022 that he planned to begin writing a second novel over Christmas. Although the book is marketed as a crime novel, I’d say it’s more philosophical in nature with the occasional plot point - normally this would irritate me, but his writing is so sharp and interesting that I actually enjoyed the meandering pace. I also live in Glasgow so was clocking the real-life and not-so opaque references to real-life establishments. He recruits his downstairs neighbour, Donnie, as his partner in crime, who unfortunately has an even greater appetite for illegal substances than Felix and they don't surprisingly get very far. I think there's a crime story in this book - ok so there definitely is, but it's not really all that front and centre, there's so much more going on around and about it that it does, on occasion, get.