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Irvine Welsh

The Blade Artist Kindle Edition

by Irvine Welsh (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

965 ratings

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‘Back to his violent best…dark, gruesome and captivating’ Esquire

The most terrifying character from Trainspotting returns.

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life – and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he’s a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary.

But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies – and, most alarmingly, his former self – Francis seems to have other ideas.

When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband’s violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly.

The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel – ultra violent but curiously redemptive – and it marks the return of one of modern fiction’s most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.

Print length

292 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage Digital
Publication date

7 April 2016
File size

1865 KB
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Product description

About the Author

Irvine Welsh is the author of eleven previous novels and four books of shorter fiction. He currently lives in Chicago. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

Back to his violent best… Dark, gruesome and captivating. -- Sam Parker ― Esquire

It’s a thriller in the mode of Tarantino making war films or westerns; hiding grand themes within genre. -- Alan Bett ― Skinny

Intense, electrifying… Welsh has delivered a tremendously entertaining book – a whodunit, a thriller, and a probing character study – that’s obsessed with conflict, both physical and mental… A surprisingly poignant, evocative read – highly recommended. ― Mr Hyde

In a year when filming begins on Danny Boyle’s sequel of sorts to Trainspotting, it seems perfect timing to revisit its most visceral force. ― Skinny

[Begbie’s] intelligence and instinct make him compelling, and Welsh keep the plot roaring along… This is a dark, guilty pleasure and written with – it seems to me – the cinema screen in mind. -- Kate Muir ― The Times --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01913WX9M
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Digital; 1st edition (7 April 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1865 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 292 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 210,183 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 4,993 in Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- 8,027 in Murder Thrillers
- 10,038 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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964 ratings

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Irvine Welsh

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Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting, Ecstasy, Glue, Porno, Filth, Marabou Stork Nightmares, The Acid House, If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs and Reheated Cabbage. He divides his time between Florida, Ireland, and Scotland.

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Customer reviews

5 star		67%
4 star		21%
3 star		8%
2 star		2%
1 star		2%

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martin haughey

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 June 2018

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Obviously this was not going to be as good as the novel Trainspotting, in my opinion an existential masterpiece.
This book is quite amateurish at times.Not just the concept of Begbie marrying his jailhouse therapist ,getting out of nick early then re-inventing himself as a popular artist(sculptor), but the feeling that old Irvine is churning out easy stuff on autopilot, hardly even looking at the page.
But I had to read it cos I read all his stuff
He's brilliant
Some of it made me cringe it was that poor.
And it takes 100 pages to get going
Sorry Irvine
Don't send the boys round !

12 people found this helpful

Farhan

From Franco Begbie To Jim Francis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 November 2017

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It seems that Welsh delivers his best writting when concerned with the Trainspotting world, Skagboys, Trainspotting, Porno and now The Blade Artist. This book focuses on dear old Franco Begbie, now reinvented as artist Jim Francis. As good as Welsh's writting is, I don't quite fully buy the Begbie transformation. His characters were so brilliantly invented and developed, that it just seems unlikely that such an intolerant, violence loving psycho could mutate into a clued up, intelligent individual with artistic flair. That said, there is plenty to remind us of the Begbie we were already familiar with, especially when dealing with the characters he meets from his past, it's just rather far fetched what Begbie is capable of and the ease with which he achieves it and is able to walk away free of retribution.
The book itself is a page turner, fast paced, although definitely on the shorter side. The reminicing consolidates what we know of Begbie and there is a delicious tension concerning his obsession with a certain Mark Renton. As long as the work produced maintains a high quality, it will always be a pleasure to read about these characters we have become so familiar with.

6 people found this helpful

Adam dey

Definitley worth a read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2018

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Definitley worth a read! Wether an Irvine Welsh fan or not this book is great fast paced read following Francis Begbie, years after the original Trainspotting novels, living in California. Upon finding out his son has been murdered back in Edinburgh Begbie returns to get some answers. As a huge fan of the original novels i found this book lacked the dark, gritty realism they possessed. However, as a story in itself it's a good read. With a few flashbacks and refrences to the old characters it keeps die hard trainspotting fans no longer craving that hit, unfortunately not for long as it was quite a short book.

4 people found this helpful

Customer

Spin off of a character who was once a train ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 October 2017

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Spin off of a character who was once a train spotter and now a cynical fashionable artist in LA returned to Scotland for a funeral. The story spirals into the world of gang violence with our anti-hero surviving against all odds and his undefined mental condition, presumably theresult of previous drug abuse. The hopelessness of the underbelly of Scottish "society" is once again ably (realistically?) portrayed, but there's not a lot of laughs except for the exploitation of fashion in art which rings several bells.

4 people found this helpful

Ian

Typically controversial

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2019

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If you have ever read any Welsh books before or seen the films based on them you have an idea what you are getting. A good story with drugs, sex and violence so don’t be shocked with this one. I always struggle a bit with the dialogue written in ‘Scottish ‘ but hey I knew what I was getting !

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