Meantime: The gripping debut crime novel from Frankie Boyle
£0.90
*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*
*Shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year*
How do you solve a murder when you don’t have a clue? Frankie Boyle’s gripping crime debut novel, Meantime, is a hallucinogenic ride through Glasgow as one man seeks justice for his friend’s murder.
Glasgow, 2015. When Valium addict Felix McAveety’s best friend Marina is found murdered in the local park, he goes looking for answers to questions that he quickly forgets. In a haze of uppers, hallucinogens, and diazepam, Felix enlists the help of a brilliant but mercurial GP; a bright young trade unionist; a failing screenwriter; semi-celebrity crime novelist Jane Pickford; and his crisis fuelled downstairs neighbour Donnie.
Their investigation sends them on a bewildering expedition that takes in Scottish radical politics, Artificial Intelligence, cults, secret agents, smugglers and vegan record shops.
Meantime is a thrilling detective story set against the backdrop of post-referendum Scotland. Frankie Boyle’s compelling debut novel is a tale of murder and revenge, and of personal and political loss.
‘A darkest noir, unputdownable crime novel that swerves and surprises, with a gut-punch ending. I loved it!’ Denise Mina, author of The Long Drop
‘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
‘An enjoyably dark and entertaining tranche of Glasgow noir . . . [A] deft, engaging thriller’ Observer
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Additional information
| Publisher | Baskerville (21 July 2022) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 1359 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 359 pages |
by Stephen Clynes
When Felix McAveety’s best friend Marina is found murdered in the local park, he goes looking for answers.
Meantime is NOT your regular crime/mystery/thriller. Meantime has been written by Frankie Boyle, a Scottish comedian and writer. I most enjoy him doing his television show New World Order, particularly his monologues at the end. Meantime is written in a similar fashion to his monologues and is a first person narrative. Whatever Felix says or thinks is just like Frankie Boyle on stage. Meantime is full of humour and it is a very witty read. The issues that are poked fun at are very far reaching, the breadth of his humour is amazing, Frankie Boyle is NOT a one joke comedian. As I progressed through this novel, I realised just how very intelligent and skilled Frankie is as a writer.
Meantime is set around Glasgow in 2015 but don’t let that put you off! The issues and problems are still current today.
I enjoyed reading Meantime but the enjoyment is NOT the solving of Marina’s murder. The enjoyment comes from the humour on pretty much every page. I loved the satire throughout this book. For example…
An older woman was introduced to me as Christine. She was introduced to me as if I would naturally know who she was. The threshold for fame in Scotland is quite low, so she could have been anything from an MSP to someone who’d streaked at a football match.
… Meantime reflects everyday life in Glasgow and includes many references to drugs and sex. There is also lots of commentary about current trends and future challenges like AI – Artificial Intelligence. For example…
Fascism, though… my worry is that we might be heading towards some kind of techo fascism, although it might be just a type of hyper-surveillance that is indistinguishable from actual fascism: where everyone is reduced to a kind of ultra-monitored husk.
…Meantime is a character driven story and WOW! the characterization is very strong. The initial crime scene is incidental, it’s the humour and social commentary that are the focus. Oh yes, there are a lot of drugs involved and as I have no personal experience whatsoever of drugs, I have no idea what Frankie Boyle is writing about! But this did not spoil my enjoyment of his book.
I consider Meantime to be a GOOD 4 star read, it is NOT a regular crime/mystery/thriller but a witty, intelligent and thought provoking modern read for people who appreciate satire, like myself.
by Amazonian Customer
Meantime is Frankie Boyle’s debut novel. Felix McAveety’s friend Marina is murdered in a local park, and he takes it on himself to investigate her death.
Felix is an engaging character. Thoroughly self-deprecating, he’s a total waster who can’t face everyday life without serious quantities of pharmaceuticals. And therein lies one of the main problems with this book – the drugs. There are just too many descriptions of them and their effects, and it just gets a bit unnecessarily tedious.
The writing is good and kept me coming back for more. However, I did keep losing track of the characters and by the end I still wasn’t totally sure who everyone was or why Marina had been killed. I did enjoy it though, probably because as is the case with many comedians’ writing, it’s very hard to divorce the narrator’s voice from that of the stand-up:
“I always thought that ‘All You Need Is Love’ was meant kind of ironically, and that the trumpets are supposed to represent a kind of mocking laughter. I suppose this says a lot about me.”
In short, if you like Frankie Boyle, it’s an entertaining read, but I strongly suspect his next book will be better.
by Graham G Grant
This is a private eye novel – well, sort of. At least it purports to be one, albeit a comedy crime novel, but really it’s a vehicle for Boyle’s brilliant, dark gags. He’s the master of black comedy. I love his stand-up – a lot of the jokes from his most recent tour are recycled here. His characters are largely drug addicts or alcoholics. The influence of Iain Banks here is inescapable. The paranoid characters obsess about the end of the world and whether we’re really living in a computer simulation. But the drugs aspect is massively overdone. The plot is bizarre and impenetrable. It concerns a pill-popping former comedy writer whose pal is murdered. He attempts an investigation with his similarly drugged-up neighbour. It’s all very right-on and politically preachy – a side of Boyle I find a little dull. That said, there are plenty of very funny, laugh-out-loud passages. But the editing is sloppy. Strathclyde Police is mentioned – but it doesn’t exist anymore. And there are no ‘inquests’ in Scotland. Does this matter? Yes, but not much – because this isn’t a novel, it’s a simulation of a crime novel. On that level, it doesn’t really work – it’s awful. Even as a comic novel, it doesn’t work. However, it redeems itself slightly in some of the extremely impressive closing sections, which are very moving and ‘straight’ – the gags are dialled down, or disappear, and suddenly we get an explanation for why our protagonist became such a disaster zone, living on Valiums – and whatever else he can lay hands on. It makes you wonder what Boyle is capable of beyond the gags and the student union political rhetoric – which is, admittedly, often very funny. The true rating is probably closer to 3.5 – and for some of the later stages of the book it’s a definite 4. The gags are great – almost always a 5. Stick to stand-up is a cruel verdict – but probably on the money.