First thoughts
Irvine Welsh
Jonathan Cape, €17.65; ebook, €16.72
Review: Scott Dougal
Skagboys sounds like the title of an Irvine Welsh parody but it is the real thing, in which he revisits his Leith muses: Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud.
This prequel to Trainspotting traces how each of the quartet — and many more besides — fell from grace as jobs, education and optimism gave way to unemployment, Thatcher and heroin.
Welsh has hinted that this, along with the Trainspotting sequel Porno, is material he had written for the book which made his name, and some passages do suggest an author refining a raw voice. However, there is enough of what Welsh does well — needle-sharp dialogue, vivid characters and a certainty of place — to make Skagboys his best work in many years.
Although it lacks the pace of Trainspotting, at three times the length, and aims for but falls short of Glue’s Dickens-like scope, this is still an essential read.
Timothy Mo
Turnaround €23.1
Review: Emma Everingham
Award-winning writer Timothy Mo, who has penned such Anglo-Chinese greats as Sour Sweet and The Redundancy Of Courage, has returned after a 12-year break with his seventh novel, Pure.
Set in Thailand, we meet film critic, ladyboy and narrator of the novel Snooky, who manages to get herself into a precarious situation when she’s involved in a drug bust.
While questioned by police, she meets MI6 veteran Victor Veridian, who gives her a get out of jail free card — literally.
To avoid 20 years in a Bangkok jail, she will have to spy on her old school friends, who have since become radical Muslims, in the south of Thailand.
Snooky accepts the offer and proceeds to immerse herself into the group as a man called Ahmed. While struggling to forget about her Bangkok past, she accepts her transition into Ahmed and becomes to love the Muslim faith.
The group begins its terrorist attacks, including a bomb planted at a Phuket disco, which leaves 203 casualties. Once Snooky’s story gets going, it’s fascinating.
Brooke Magnanti
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, €20.40
Review: Alex Sarll
Better known as call girl blogger Belle de Jour, Dr Brooke Magnanti is a former statistician with degrees in genetic epidemiology and forensic science. She is perfectly qualified to deliver this Ben Goldacre-style demolition of the nonsense talked about sex.
Headlines holler that sexualisation of the young is on the rise; that pornography corrupts viewers and participants; and that most prostitutes are trafficked women hooked on drugs. Magnanti asks: “Are we being given evidence and social policy, or assumptions, agendas and sloppy analysis?” The answer is the latter. She anatomises bad research driven by ideology or profit that is magnified by lazy reporting and publicity-craving politicians. She unpicks the unlikely alliance of far-right evangelists and exclusionary feminists who push repressive policies. Essential reading.
Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
HarperPress, £16.99; Kindle, £8.99
Review: Sarah Warwick
If the blood-red AK47 emblazoned on the front of this book doesn’t give you an insight into its gruesome content, then the subtitle — Kashmir 1995: Where The Terror Began — will. This book pulls few punches and taps into the greatest fear of most travellers — being kidnapped and tortured.
The Meadow is the story of six civilians captured by terrorists in the mid-1990s. It is painstakingly researched by award-winning journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark and rewards anyone brave enough to read a thorough investigation of the kidnapping and its fallout.
Even those who are unacquainted with this period of history in the Kashmir region will find Levy and Scott-Clark’s gripping account easy to follow.
An excellent source for anyone interested in the rise of terrorism.
