Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle

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Although the central character of Felix acts as the narrator it is nigh on impossible to read his stream of consciousness and interior monologue without hearing the voice of Frankie Boyle in your head. There are quite frequent examples of industrial language, so if you find the use of profanities in your reading matter off-putting, then this is probably not the book for you. Against that there are some moments that are - perhaps somewhat surprisingly - quite poignant and there are also a number of sections that not only made me smile, but actually caused me to laugh audibly.

This is Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle's debut novel and being a fan of his brand of humour, I knew I just had to read this. 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. It's set in Glasgow just after the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014 and our protagonist Felix McAveety is unemployed, previously having worked at BBC Scotland and pretty much spends his time taking drugs, both the illegal and the prescription variety and washing them down with liberal doses of alcohol. His reasons for doing so are not initially apparent but are explained in a couple of harrowing chapters near the climax of the novel. Felix's best friend Marina is found murdered in a local park and initially Felix is deemed a prime suspect and is taken into custody but is soon released and suspecting Police incompetence and indifference, decides he'll investigate her death himself. 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. Identifying the need for some 'professional' assistance, Felix manages to engage the services of Jan, an ex-Police Officer turned crime writer who is also fighting the battle against her terminal cancer diagnosis. 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.In this light his tanned, bloated head looked not unlike a haunted paper bag, his glazed eyes fixed on some bleak internal horizon.”

But I think it’s the same in crime novels,” she carries on, “that the audience want to spend time in the company of that character.” 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 lost in the noise. So, if you are looking to read this as a pure crime book, you might be disappointed. There are clear semi-autobiographical elements to this and it even gets a little meta at times. Immensely funny people tend to be immensely intelligent and Boyle is no exception, yes there are times when scenarios can have a slightly staged feel and some of his views feel almost crowbarred in, but then that’s what’s most writers do. And the results are more than worthwhile. A darkest noir, unputdownable crime novel that swerves and surprises, with a gut-punch ending. I loved it!’Denise Mina, author of The Long Drop Mina suggests that hardboiled crime novelists are able to explore “working-class social history” in a way that isn’t dull or worthy but is instead propelled by a powerful imagination.Frankie Boyle, mainly known for rude comedy and scabrous political satire, has graduated into an extremely fine author with his first novel, Meantime. It’s a tough offering, interwoven with his acute and distinctive style of in-your-face presentation. I was reading that Don DeLillo book White Noise, where people just discourse. For instance, there’s this long passage in it about the dollar gap in the 1970s, which I think is really interesting – although most editors would probably want that out. Anyway, I thought it would be quite funny to do something like that, and it fitted in with the narrator being drunk and drugged a lot of the time that he might just ramble.” No,” he says, “because it was just like, what do I like to read? And maybe that’s part of this thing of not really needing to earn a living from it.” Giving his narrator a drug-fogged worldview is also in part a reaction to “this modern thing of people being incredibly emphatic. It partly comes from social media where everybody’s very polemical all the time, and I think it’s difficult to communicate that way.” An expected triumph in every sense of the word, go add Frankie Boyle to your Fringe watchlist. Twice. The book lays bare the various worlds of Glasgow as Felix and Donnie dig deep to find out who killed Marina, and it slowly becomes that awful word, unputdownable, as the fascinating mixture of violence, drugs and unexpected humour surround the reader. The personality of Felix is beautifully drawn by Boyle. He is very likeable, wishes he did not take the drugs, and cares for his friends, all of which have the reader rooting for him.

Felix, formerly a comedy writer at BBC Scotland (allowing Boyle to lob several satirical grenades at an organisation that has clearly done him some deep wrong), has become a drop-out following a life-changing disaster. When his best friend is murdered, however, he surprises himself by summoning the willpower to investigate, albeit ineptly. It's another of those books that I would also pop into one of my favourite genres - that being bonkers. It is, and then some. Characters who are completely larger than life, lots of weird and wonderful shenanigans. And more drugs than the whole Trainspotting series - and that's just chapter one - no not really, but almost! And that is the ONLY comparison to make with Welsh's series. Anything else is an insult to both...You know the type, where you look around making sure you’re okay with the fact that you and room full of people are laughing about Frankie’s planned assassination of The Queen. How do you solve a murder when you don’t have a clue? Frankie Boyle’s gripping crime debut novel, Meantime, is a hallucinogenic ride through Glasgow as one man seeks justice for his friend’s murder. Or him almost dating a Nazi. Or his brutal takedowns of modern world leaders. Or God’s grand plan of head first anal being committed on the way to heaven and/or hell.