Dead Men's Trousers

Some things never change. Violence lurks beneath the surface. Football still resonates. And, best of all, the Scots dialect retains its colloquial zing. Welsh fans are in for another witty, scabrous treat.

Max Davidson, Mail on Sunday **Best New Fiction**

Blackly funny... It’s ultimately a mark of Welsh’s magic in having created such memorable characters.

Anthony Cummins, Observer

Irresistible... No one captures the competing affections and resentments that underpin lifelong friendships like Welsh, and the original lads – Sick Boy and Spud in particular – still bring out the best in him... keeping you gripped and choking on bursts of shocked laughter.

Esquire

Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud are back in this wildly farcical story of revenge, sentimentality and psychedelic drugs... a whooping last hurrah (possibly) for the Trainspotting gang... very funny.

Sam Leith, Guardian

Dead Men’s Trousers is Welsh at his scabrous, foul-mouthed best as the Trainspotting crew of Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud are reunited in a high-velocity tale of drug dealing, prostitution and the Hollywood art scene – with the odd compulsory organ donation casually tossed in with sadistic aplomb.

Stephen McGinty, Sunday Times

Crackling with energy and verve, it’s all brilliant fun... But the onset of middle age, and a shocking death add poignancy to [Dead Men’s Trousers].

Sunday Mirror

Welsh is on compulsively readable, searingly funny form in what has been billed as the final Trainspotting novel… What I really like about Welsh’s storytelling is that he makes these amoral misadventures so propulsive, so joyfully awful, that you have to go with the flow… this roués’ romp is about as much fun as you can have between two book covers.

Dominic Maxwell, The Times

A vignette-like study of modern masculinity… This final book in Welsh’s self-described "Harry Potter franchise" is as much character study as social commentary, and a sympathetic observation about how growing older doesn’t necessarily mean growing wiser.

Zoë Apostolides, Financial Times

Fast and furious, scabrously funny and weirdly moving, this is a spectacular return of the crew from Trainspotting.

No.1