Two-Way Split

"The holdall sat on the bed like an ugly brown bag of conscience." Fans of classic crime writing will get a kick or five out of TWO-WAY SPLIT, and we're talking classic: Allan Guthrie's multi-character exploration of Edinburgh's underbelly marries the spare, laconic prose of James M. Cain with the psychological grotesqueries of Jim Thompson at his most lurid. And yet this is by no means a period piece. Guthrie's unhurried, deadpan style is timeless even as it evokes the changing face of modern Edinburgh, as seen through the eyes of the novel's most sympathetic character, Pearce - although sympathetic is a relative term, given that Pearce has been recently released from prison after serving a ten-stretch for premeditated murder. The most delicious aspect of the tale is its refusal to indulge in the sturm und drang of hyperbolic gore, despite being couched in the narrative of a revenge fantasy. Instead, and while it fairly bristles with the frisson of potential violence at every turn, Guthrie cranks up the tension notch by notch by the simple expedient of having his characters grow ever more quietly desperate as the pages turn. The result is a gut-knotting finale that unfurls with the inevitability of all great tragedy and the best nasty sex - it'll leave you devastated, hollowed out, aching to cry and craving more. - Declan Burke, Crime Always Pays

Allan Guthire's Blithe Pyschopaths, renamed Two Way Split, is a tremendous debut effort. This is hard boiled noir, and not for those of tender sensibilities. The Edinburgh winter in which the novel takes place is as stark as the tightly constructed plot. The viewpoint moves rapidly from character to character. Sophisticated writers can convey a lot of nuance to the reader with this format and Guthrie is more than up to the task. Starting with a PI looking into a cheating wife, followed by a botched post office robbery the novel moves towards a tidy and surprisingly moral conclusion. Hugely flawed and often ironic characters dominate the action, but their flaws do not keep the reader from caring about them. It is the dialog that remains with one long after putting the book down. Whether it the interior dialog of an acrophobic as he dangles from a poorly supported piece of scaffolding or the explicit dialog between a child abuser and the person sent to do him serious hard, Guthrie never fails to deliver crackling, witty repertoire. Definitely recommended.

Al Guthrie's TWO-WAY SPLIT is written in the same rich tradition as noir pioneers like Wade Miller, Charles Williams, and James M. Cain. (In fact, TWS is the perfect modern equivalent of those vintage, fabulous Gold Medal PBOs that crime fiction readers enjoy.) But TWS is very much set in today's gritty Edinburgh. The plot is twisty; the pace breakneck; the prose muscular; and the dialogue laconic -- all the right ingredients to brew a wicked stew. And yet just enough humanity manages to peeks in by the end. Robin Greaves holds up a post office. Simple enough, right? But the robbery goes awry. A killer named Pearce's "mum" works for the post office. Greaves soon faces more problems than he ever bargained for, starting with escaping the ticked-off Pearce. The double-crosses and intrigue ripen this tough crime drama. Desperate, savage types are pitted against each other and you're swept along spellbound, unable to stop reading until you finally see how it all shakes out. If noir is your thing, TWO-WAY SPLIT should go at the top of your reading list.

Allan Guthrie has restored my faith in contemporary crime fiction. After being burned by too many of today's crime writers who seem to be turning out nothing but repetitive, formulaic junk, Guthrie has come along with a book full of non-stop action, great characters, and a story that will leave to breathless. It's not a long book, but there's enough packed into it that you'd think it was 500 pages (if nothing else, this book is proof novels don't need to be long to be exciting). "Two-Way Split" brings a new twist to the usual caper novel, and the actual "split" will have you thinking of another crime writer named Jim Thompson, now deceased, but you'll see how much better Guthrie handled that particular motif than Thompson ever could.

Every now and then I come across a book that takes me completely by surprise. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I picked up my copy of TWO-WAY SPLIT by Allan Guthrie although I had my suspicions it would involve the darker side of life. At least I was correct in that assumption. What I wasn't prepared for was the superb depiction of a group of troubled people unknowingly digging themselves deeper and deeper into terrible trouble.Robin Greaves, his wife Carol and her lover Eddie Soutar are robbers who are planning on robbing a post office in a daring daylight raid. Their plan, in order to get the cashiers to cooperate, is to utilise the two ingredients that they believe is common in all successful robberies: hostage taking and violence. It's not a perfect plan but it's a pretty good one and should have a good possibility of success. But a few ingredients are added to the set-up that not only tips the balance towards a more precarious outcome, but also turns the story into a melange of unexpected twists and turns.The first glimmer that all may not go smoothly comes when Greaves finds out through a private investigator that Carol and Eddie are having an affair. Understandably Robin doesn't take the news well and the simmering rage he harbours looks like it could bubble over at any moment.Possible problem number two is the revelation that Robin has already spent some time in a mental institution. In itself this wouldn't exactly be a problem, but we also know that he hasn't been taking some sort of medication for almost five months. When going into a tense situation carrying weapons, one wouldn't think that the ideal person to be watching your back is a betrayed husband, who may not be 100% mentally stable, would one?Another problem is that a man named Pearce, a recently released prisoner who has done time for murder is planning on visiting his mother at lunchtime. Oh yeah...his mother works in a post office.The final little fly in the ointment is the appearance of Don. (Keep an eye out for Don).Guthrie has chosen to tell this story along a timeline, heading each new chapter with a timestamp which serves to remind us just how quickly the events unfold. It's a wonderfully tough crime novel set in Edinburgh in a suitably sleazy part of town where the feeling of desperation simply oozes off the pages. Massage parlours, broken down tenements and dirty alleyways form the grim backdrop to this dark story of greed, violence and betrayal.There are no heroes in TWO-WAY SPLIT, in fact none of the main characters are particularly likable but what they lack in endearing personality they more than make up in complex obsessions. The gang of Robin, Carol and Eddie are doomed to fail from the start. What's unclear is just what character deficiency will be the one to ultimately trip them up. Pearce probably comes closest to hero status, at least displaying some sort of empathy with others. But he is also established as a man of extreme violence, much of it contr