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The Blade Artist  By  cover art

The Blade Artist

By: Irvine Welsh
Narrated by: Tam Dean Burn
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Publisher's summary

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life - and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he's a fake and a con man while others see him as a genuine visionary.

But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge.

But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies - and, most alarmingly, his former self - Francis seems to have other ideas. When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California that indicates her husband's violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad very quickly.

The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel - ultraviolent but curiously redemptive - and it marks the return of one of modern fiction's most infamous, terrifying characters: the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.

©2016 Irvine Welsh (P)2016 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about The Blade Artist

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Welsh's best work since "Crime"

This is probably Welsh's best book since "Crime" and might even top that one. If you're a fan, you owe it to yourself to read this, especially if you've read "Trainspotting". If you're not, I still suggest giving this a go if you like your reading to be a little off the beaten path but still highly accessible and thoroughly rewarding...

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Tam Dean Burn is magic. thanks mr. welsh, begbie

amazing character acting. stunning material. Welsh at a different tempo, but at his best nonethesless

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Strong work from Irvine Welsh

I have to admit I'm an Irvine Welsh fan, but I believe this is one of his best works. It's a very well paced story about one of his most notorious and memorable characters, Frank Begby and the double life he has come to live.

Tam Dean Burn does a great job as always.

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