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‘A gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality’ Financial Times

‘Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.’

Enter – if you can bear it – the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.

Praise for Iain Banks:

‘The most imaginative novelist of his generation’ The Times

‘His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers’ Ken MacLeod, Guardian

‘His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent’ Neil Gaiman

‘An exceptional wordsmith’ Scotsman

Publisher Review

One of the most brilliant first novels I have come across * Telegraph * One of the top 100 novels of the century * Independent * Read it if you dare * Express * A brilliant book, barmy and barnacled with the grotesque * New Statesman * Macabre, bizarre and impossible to put down * Financial Times * Brilliant . . . irresistible . . . compelling * New York Times *