With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife (and the resulting domestic squalor), a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, and a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs, on top of tall this, is a messy murder to solve. Still, it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves.
But as this single-minded career cop spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition - in the form of truth and ethical conscience - from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. With such an adversary you can run, but you just can't hide. Things are beginning to go badly for the Detective Sergeant, but in an Irvine Welsh book nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse.
In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction, and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.
