by Irvine Welsh
First published 2025
In the grimy backroom of a working-class Edinburgh pub, a tight-knit group of men circle each other like wounded animals. Tommy, a recovering addict with a criminal past, returns to his old neighborhood after a stint in rehab, hoping to rebuild his life. But his friends—a volatile mix of ex-cons, bartenders, and small-time hustlers—see his sobriety as a threat to their established pecking order. As tensions escalate and old rivalries resurface, Tommy becomes trapped between loyalty to his crew and the fragile promise of a new start. Each man harbors secrets that could destroy them, and survival means navigating a minefield of addiction, pride, and desperate masculinity. In this pressure cooker of male friendship, one wrong move could shatter everything.
Genres: fiction, addiction, crime, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-friends, found-family, toxic-relationship
Setting: Edinburgh, Scotland
Period: 21st-century
544 pages · Paperback · Jonathan Cape
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, violence