357 pages
English language
Published Oct. 3, 2012 by Little, Brown.
Stewart Gilmour must confront his past when he returns to Stonemouth, Scotland, for the funeral of a local patriarch during a supposed temporary truce between crime families.
It's a bit Iain Banks by the numbers, but it also has a lot of what made Banks such a great author in it: believably flawed characters, an adventure blown up a little past plausibility, loving descriptions of a place.
It's a bit Iain Banks by the numbers, but it also has a lot of what made Banks such a great author in it: believably flawed characters, an adventure blown up a little past plausibility, loving descriptions of a place.
It's a bit Iain Banks by the numbers, but it also has a lot of what made Banks such a great author in it: believably flawed characters, an adventure blown up a little past plausibility, loving descriptions of a place.
It's easy to call stonemouth a straightforward story. But don't all the best tales have a hero, a heroine; a beginning, an end and a potentially dodgy bit in the middle. Throw in a touch of redemption with the odd mystery, sex, drugs and booze always helps sets the mood.
But none of the rest are Iain Banks books.
Most don't have the easy character generation breeding some empathy - positive or negative - for people you never met before and will scarce encounter again. Or better, when he describes places and situations, the feeling that you are immersed within it yourself.
Surely not his best, but it doesn't have to be to more than good enough for your brain and mine.
Vale Sir, miss you mightily. RIP
Just a placeholder for now.
Very nostalgic and romantic for Banks. Set against a back-drop of not quite civilized gang thuggery in NE Scotland, this is very much a book about boy meets girl, and family and friends.
