Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle

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Written in his world-weary and sarcastic stand up style it nevertheless contains many laugh out loud descriptions especially the internal monologue of his down on his luck protagonist, Felix and his interactions with his downstairs neighbour Donnie. Reading the press reviews I got the impression the book would have a early Chris Brookmyre and Colin Bateman feel to it but even funnier as it was Boyle writings. And more drugs than the whole Trainspotting series - and that's just chapter one - no not really, but almost! 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.

However, be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster as this book hits you with every emotion possible by the end and leaves you realising that, as with everything Frankie Boyle does, the tension arrives when you’re not expecting it. For me, the central character seemed to be very much Frankie Boyle himself, he certainly used his jokes. It holds a different kind of magic, one where the disappointment from the referendum eats at the shoes of people walking to work, hailing taxis, and people on serious comedowns in dingy wee flats that contain all the hope of a mouldy pizza sitting on the countertop. It’s really quite surreal to be honest as it follows the main character in Felix as he investigate ps the death of a friend. Marina was involved in Alternative Independence, a left-wing movement for Scottish independence in the 2014 referendum.

It's dazzingly funny, grappling with big ideas, and is heartbreakingly tinged with personal and political loss. David Chong – a GP and drug dealer associated with Marina and obsessed with the idea that the universe is simulated. 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. I didn’t care about him, or the murdered woman, or any of the rag tag band of misfits he’d enlisted to help him solve the crime.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Nevertheless, I felt that they were throwing plot twists quite fast and accelerating the story to a pace we'd not met before, almost as if there was a challenge to finish the book soon and squeeze it all in! Taking readers from the world of drugs, to artificial intelligence, to conspiracy theory through to politics (Like AI without the I part . 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.Set in Scotland in 2015, Felix is a drug addict and when a friend of his Marina is murdered in a local park, not trusting the police to do their job, Felix decides in his drugged fuelled haze to try to find out what happened.

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. Beware if you are offended by drug taking and gratuitous and appalling swear words, but that's Glasgow for you!Not constrained to rely on the book for income, Boyle tried to recreate styles that he enjoyed reading.