Final novel set the tone for a fitting departure for author Iain Banks

We will miss Banks. He was born in 1954; his mother was a former professional ice-skater, his father was in the Royal Navy. After university in Sterling, he worked a succession of jobs, including a stint as a dustman and as a hospital porter, before finding his mark at 30 as a writer

The circumstances around the publication of Iain Banks’ novel, The Quarry, are extremely poignant. The book, which is the last of 29 he has published, hinges on a weekend reunion of old university friends at the house of the acerbic Guy who is “dying fast” from lung cancer.