Crime

This book has the normal (for Irvine Welsh) themes of drugs, violence, and sexual wrongness - but in a more accessible and readable form than usual. It's severely Americanized, and not in a bad way.

"Crime," a new novel by Scottish author Irvine Welsh, now comes to us in paperback. Welsh is the critically-acclaimed author of Trainspotting, (made into a movie of the same name, Trainspotting, by Gaelic director Danny Boyle, who recently won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire.) Welsh has also penned the cult classics Porno; Filth; and The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs: A Novel. In "Crime," Welsh seems to have borrowed a page from his best-selling countryman Ian Rankin, penning a British mystery/police procedural/thriller partially set in Edinburgh, Scotland -- as are Rankin's police procedurals -- and in glitzy, glamorous, and down-on-its heels Florida, U.S.A. Mind you, with his outstanding literary gifts, Welsh has given us far more than a police procedural here. Could it be characterized as tartan noir? Who knows. It's a British mystery as written by a Scot, perhaps tougher and more bloody-minded than the average run of mysteries; it does have that dark Scots humor; but he's certainly considered a higher-brow of author than a mere mystery writer... Welsh gives us police detective inspector Ray Lennox, of the Edinburgh P.D., (as Rankin has given us John Rebus.) Lennox has recently solved a particularly ugly child kidnapping/abuse/murder; but has solved it too late for the child, Britney Hamil. Lennox, a brilliant cop, is physically and mentally exhausted; finding it far too easy to fall back on his favored crutches: alcohol, cocaine, and whatever else he can. His superiors put him on mental health leave. He and his fiancée Trudi jet to sunny Miami; but, while Trudi is poring over "Perfect Bride," nagging him to pick the date and the venue, Lennox is continuing to fall apart. They quarrel; he's off for a night, during which he hooks up with two desperate young women, Robyn and Starry: and follows Robyn home for a coke session, painted in dark realism. Robyn's 10-year old daughter Tianna sleeps in her bedroom off the living room as best she can. Two threatening strangers, who obviously mean Tianna no good, burst in. Lennox grabs the young girl, and, in an interesting reversal of Vladimir Nabokov's famous book Lolita; he rents a car and hits the road with the child - not to abuse her, but to try to protect her from abuse. The author has crafted a book that I found thoroughly satisfying as a taut police procedural/thriller; but it's also a probing psychological evaluation of Lennox, and a scalding observation of the pedophiliac world. His descriptive and narrative writing are superb. His characters are carved to the life, off-the wall; their profanity-rich dialog is inventive. They interact in a threatening, topsy-turvy universe, filled with Welsh's well-known comedic absurdity and wit, in which Trudi's well-thumbed copy of "Perfect Bride" plays its - unexpected - part. And yet, he offers us hope.

Mr Welsh at his best. His narrative of Florida and America was very insightful from the Scottish point of view he penned this novel from. I later found out he resides there. No wonder it was so good. The plot moves back and forth between the past and it's ghosts to the present day and the pressing matter of saving a child from a gang of molesters. The characters were so vivid and the plot was paced such that I found I could not put the book down. It comes across as a more mature read than the likes of train spotting. One of his best works I feel.

Having never read one of Irvine Welsh's books before but being a fan of the movie "Trainspotting", I picked this book up on a whim. It is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The protagonist Ray Lennox is a Detective Inspector with the Edinburgh, Scotland Police Department. Haunted by a murdered child case, Ray is forced to go on medical leave and heads to South Florida with his fiance for a little R+R. Ray gets caught up in a situation ultimately being responsible for a ten year old girl he doesn't know. The book switches back and forth between the present day, on vacation in Florida and the case that haunts Ray back in Scotland. The pace and tempo are superb. Just when you think you know what is going to happen you are hit from a completely different direction.

Wielding language with the same deft authority as in his previous novels, the scathingly articulate Welsh delivers a powerful story of a man haunted by his recent failures, DI Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh PD. Breaking down after the traumatizing case of a murdered little girl, Lennox has succumbed to the sweat-soaked nightmares of his failures on the job, vainly trying to save victims from the monsters who prey on them. Attending NA and gulping down prescribed antidepressants, Lennox and fiancé, Trudi, fly to Miami for a much-needed vacation, he in an effort to clear his mind, she with a "Perfect Bride" magazine and growing guest list in hand. Caught up in wedding plans, Trudi is flummoxed when Ray goes completely off the track; she has failed to notice ominous signs of Ray's further unraveling. He stops taking his medication, his internal demons soon reawakened. It isn't long before the thirst is upon him, Ray seeking oblivion in alcohol, which only exacerbates his life problems and triggers the urge for cocaine. Quite literally, Welsh's protagonist is a mess, an emotional and mental wreck bedeviled by memories of the little girl he couldn't save, his thoughts filled with the degenerates he interviewed while searching for the missing girl, their twisted world-views eating into his soul until he sees such men everywhere: "Lennox was too sensitive to cope with the savagery that surrounded him in Serious Crimes." A beautifully flawed protagonist, this tough cop is driven to his knees by the evil that assaults helpless children, even Trudi unable to break through the wall of pain that threatens to overwhelm him. As his drinking accelerates, the inevitable happens- a bitter argument. Trudi stalks off to their Miami hotel, leaving Ray at a bar, his rage and thirst for drink and self-punishment sending him into the embrace of the denizens who feed on the innocence of the poor and vulnerable. From tourist-friendly Miami to the darker, meaner streets of abuse, drugs and various forms of depravity, Lennox is in free fall, partying with his new best friends, trapped in yet another nightmare, groggily rescuing ten-year-old Tianna from the circling sharks. Once again, Welsh is at the top of his game, his extremely sympathetic, tormented hero struggling for clarity far from his native Scotland, on a mad chase with a child across Florida to evade her predators, Trudi flailing at her helplessness and this vacation-run-amok, wondering what she is doing with this man. Ray's torment is a beautiful thing in Welsh's hands, including the flashbacks in Edinburgh that lay the groundwork for the protagonist's mental condition, a cynical, often sardonic cop caught in the vortex of a crime he most detests, looking for redemption with a damaged child at his side. This is a tough story- no punches pulled- the ugly underbelly of this particular form of degeneracy exposed to the light. Physically and mentally battered, Lennox is called upon to exorcise his long-repressed de