Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle

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The characters come to life with a clarity that is very solid and quite unusual, especially in a first novel, as they stand beside you as you are reading. All avid readers will know the joy of seeing them moulded in their mind as the clarity of the personalities slowly become clear and adds a great dimension to the story. Having laughed an indecent amount during Lap of Honour, I feel compelled to restate the case for his defence, which is that Boyle valuably confronts us with our moral putrefaction, his darkness descriptive of our age’s turpitude. As his debut novel, the best-selling crime thriller Meantime confirms, he combines immaculate turns of phrase with the grubbiest trains of thought. His parents were Irish, he grew up in Glasgow; at his finest, you get a glimpse of Wilde, lying in the gutter at pub closing time.

And my final comment which I think is quite key to the whole thing. It's a bit tongue in cheek and doesn't take itself that seriously - which, for me, made it all the more enjoyable and easy to read. I wonder if he has another book in the pipeline. I'd definitely be up for more of the same... There was notable resistance in small portions of the audience to come aboard with his brief discussions surrounding feminism and religion in what was otherwise a politics-heavy show, with one audience member being booted for interfering early in the set.Reads like a twisted Caledonian take on Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. Inherent vices and scalpel-sharp jokes vie with a very human concern for those least garlanded in the rat race of life' Ian Rankin

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.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.

Oh and remember who the author is before you make comment about the language. Informed choice and all that jazz... That said, it was all in context. Their investigation sends them on a bewildering expedition that takes in Scottish radical politics, Artificial Intelligence, cults, secret agents, smugglers and vegan record shops. I'd give it 7/10 if I was able. I'd say I enjoyed slightly over two thirds but the other third appeared to simply be a manual on what drugs to take and when and what they did to our protagonist.The main twist was learning about Felix's history, and I wish we'd heard a bit more about this story, perhaps in conversation with Jane? I would have liked more time to learn about him and his past in depth. The same goes for Jane and Amy - I feel that their characters were rushed off the scene to wrap things up, and so this is why I'm giving 4 stars. Throw in a very poignant and touching ending and you will have a read like no other that will bring out all the emotions in you. Boyle has said that he was an alcoholic until he was 26, when he quit drinking, and he’s also spoken about using various drugs. He mentions that he wrote My Shit Life So Far on ecstasy. So what was the reason for making his narrator someone who is constantly under the influence of one drug or another? Writing a crime novel now appears to be a well-established rung on the career ladder of white male television entertainers, achieved with varying degrees of success and skill, so it’s a relief to find that Frankie Boyle’s first work of fiction is an enjoyably dark and entertaining tranche of Glasgow noir. It contains all the deft wordplay you’d expect of him, and a few well-aimed, drive-by satirical shots at political targets along the way. The mystery that underpins this crime novel is solid enough, but I can't help thinking that its role is secondary and it is essentially only a vehicle for the author to air his thoughts - both comedic and socio-political. In many respects "Meantime" does come across as one long Frankie Boyle stand-up routine. For that reason, I found that I had to break this down into digestible portions ... Listening to Frankie Boyle for an hour or so is fine, but a stand-up routine of six hours or more is probably a bit more than I could cope with in one hit.