Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle

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Inherent vices and scalpel-sharp jokes vie with a very human concern for those least garlanded in the rat race of life' Ian Rankin'Part whodunnit, part social safari, part extended stand-up monologue . There are a few twists and gotcha moments throughout the story and I found myself really engaged by these and the one-liners that are dashed throughout. Felix taxis away with Tom and Sophie from Beloved Intelligence, who give him information on Chong and Marina.

Though enjoying some digressions, the reviewer saw much of it as "self-indulgent", including the simulation theory that is given much emphasis and "bafflingly explored" through a fictional pitch to BBC Scotland. Overall a very good quality service from this seller and I would not hesitate to recommend this seller. I gave up about page 150 when the plot had started to devolve past my ability to follow, even allowing for the narrator’s drug- addled brain.Clarity is not Felix McAveety’s forte, but when his best friend, Marina, is found murdered in a Glasgow park and he is deemed the prime suspect, he decides to investigate the case himself. He most definitely wasn’t stupid, but he did seem to be numbed by all of the drugs he was taking which I think held him back in his investigation.

There’s also a great affection for Glasgow and its inhabitants, with all their screw-ups and foibles, and it’s this that gives the novel not just wit but heart. Their investigation pits them up against a local crime lord, murderous political activists, a deranged stalker, a British Intelligence Officer and artificial intelligence, as they try to unravel a tangled web of drug dealing and corruption to identify Marina's killer. There’s lots of humour throughout, as you would expect from Frankie Boyle, but I enjoyed the layers of dark conspiracy that made up the mystery that Felix sets out to uncover. Not quite on a level of Trainspotting bad, but certainly not the behaviour or decorum you usually expect in crime fiction. May, Marina's flatmate, tells Felix of her controlling relationship with Malcolm, a Large Hadron Collider conspiracy theorist.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. 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. Take these examples: “And they want to create their own little Britain, with the pound, and the f***ing Queen. Imagine Withnail and I stumbling into a Bond movie co-written by William McIlvanney and Mick Herron .

This was not a crime story, it was a way for Frankie to spill all his guff onto the page and bore us all to tears. The Guardian 's Wilson found that Meantime, a "funny and moving" novel, was the "most impressive" celebrity crime fiction of the year. I do however think that the mystery thriller aspect of the book was kind of secondary to all of the other stuff. For me, the central character seemed to be very much Frankie Boyle himself, he certainly used his jokes. The novel is set in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and also explores Scotland's role in colonialism.Now if you've ever seen a Frankie Boyle routine or really listened to his very unique and colourful way of describing all manner of things, then you can probably already guess how the storytelling in this book is likely to go. Boyle said on Twitter in September 2022 that he planned to begin writing a second novel over Christmas.