Frankie Boyle - Meantime

[GMTV]

I don't read much fiction, so not going to pretend I can offer much of a nuanced review.

I read Frankie Boyle's debut novel a few weeks back on holiday, ploughed through it in a couple of days as I was enjoying it so much.

Set in Glasgow, it focuses on Felix Mcaveety, who's a suspect after his friend is murdered, and so he turns private detective to establish what happened and clear his name. Felix and his friend turned detective sidekick Donnie decide the best way to do this is to get off their face on almost the entire spectrum of drugs, in the hope it'll provide greater insight.

It's set after the Scottish independence referendum, and includes AI, intelligence services, the CERN large hadron collider, and of course the culture of Glasgow with the associated tribalism and vitriol.

I absolutely loved William Mcilvanney's Laidlaw trilogy, and I can't believe that frankie Boyle of all people has written a spiritual successor to this story, and made such a resounding success of it. For such a big fan of those books he's managed something quite special.

I assume Boyle must've been inspired by these books, and I think there were a few allusions to Laidlaw that he surely is a fan too - the murder, it's location, the police detective called Jack.

One interesting aspect is the difference between both books show the changes in Glasgow in the 40 odd years between the books. Mcilvanney captured the essence of what made Glasgow unique in his books. They're amazing murder mysteries, but even more than that got the feel of the city and its unique culture. Boyle attempts to call upon the west end of Glasgow in a similar way in this book, but really Glasgow's almost like any other homogenised city now and so the references to the city and areas feel quite flat in comparison.

Whereas Laidlaw was relatively apolitical although from a left leaning socialist perspective, Boyle firmly nails his colours to the mast with his pro independence, big tech fearing, government conspiracy feelings clear throughout.

He managed to deliver a big twist at the end that I never saw coming.

Its also brilliantly funny in places, I had a fair few belly laughs, putting the book down for a minute or saying to my wife read this bit to share the joke.

If you're a fan of frankie Boyle or tartan noir I would highly recommend you get this as I thought it was brilliant. Really hoping it does well and he builds on this.

[Pink Gregory]

I remember him reading a bit of this on Live from the Covid Arms during lockdown and being pleasantly surprised, I'm not a fan of his comedy at all but he seems like someone who can actually write and plot and didn't just get published (entirely) because he's already a tv personality.