A decorative banner featuring a portrait of Simon Prosser and a collage of images like a nuclear explosion and a graffiti peace sign

Penguin books that shocked society

Features

The Penguin books that shocked society

Resolution-Irvine-Extract-Header

Extracts

Extract: Resolution by Irvine Welsh

21Qs-Irvine-Welsh_Main-1800x1200_Penguin

Interviews

‘I don’t fear death’: 21 Questions with Irvine Welsh￼

Irvine-Welsh-WTSW_Hero-Desktop_Penguin

Reading lists

Where to start with Irvine Welsh

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

1990-main-image-1800×1200.jpg

Books that defined the 1990s

6 of our favourite author cameos in films – did you spot them?

author-cameos-lee-child.jpg

Resolution

The #1 Sunday Times bestseller is back with a powerful, thrilling new CRIME novel. 
A SHOCKING CRIME. A MAVERICK DETECTIVE.A FINAL CHANCE TO EXPOSE THE TRUTH. 
 
Ray Lennox is determined to escape his darkest days. The former inspector has left Edinburgh for a fresh start in Brighton. Soon, his fixations and addictions have been replaced with quiet evenings and a rigorous fitness regime. 
 
Then Lennox meets Mathew Cardingworth, a rich and smooth-talking property developer. Their encounter reawakens memories that have haunted Lennox for decades. 
 
Lennox has no choice – he must confront the events of his childhood. But as he is pulled into a world of violence and murder, he finds himself asking: what will he sacrifice to achieve resolution at last? 
***** 
PRAISE FOR NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER IRVINE WELSH: 
‘There’s only one Welsh and you should be reading him’ 
OBSERVER 
‘The best thing that has happened to British writing for decades’ 
SUNDAY TIMES 
‘Powerful . . . A bracing and engaging read’ 
DAILY TELEGRAPH 
‘Plot twists keep the pages turning’DAILY EXPRESS 
 (Irvine Welsh’s Resolution was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 15 Jul 2024)

Crime is by some distance Welsh's most restrained and thoughtful work

You never know what you're going to get with Irvine Welsh, other than guaranteed intelligence. But what you get in Crime is a triumph... There's only one Welsh and you should be reading him again

Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing for decades

If you like your crime dramas Scottish and sweary, this one's for you

Trainspotting is the best book ever written by man or woman... Deserves to sell more copies than the Bible

Irvine Welsh is more than happy to assault current shibboleths… unsparing… caustic stuff.. those who relish his unvarnished, in-your-face narratives will get more than their money’s worth

Resolution continues the industrially gritty travails of Ray Lennox… slowly developing into one of Welsh’s most enigmatic, enduring and intriguing characters

Welsh’s crime trilogy reaches a grisly conclusion in this revenge tragedy… [the] plot twists keep the pages turning

There’s no denying…[Welsh’s] ability to plum the more toxic reaches of masculinity and the nightmares they conceal

Irvine Welsh was born and raised in Edinburgh. His first novel, Trainspotting, has sold over one million copies in the UK and was adapted into an era-defining film. He has written fourteen further novels, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller Dead Men’s Trousers, four books of shorter fiction and numerous plays and screenplays. Irvine Welsh currently lives between London, Edinburgh and Miami.

OLD TRUTHS HAVE NEW CONSEQUENCES 
 
Ray Lennox is determined to move on from his darkest days. The maverick former detective has left Edinburgh for a fresh start in Brighton. Soon, his fixations and addictions have been replaced with quiet evenings and a rigorous fitness regime. 
 
Then Lennox meets Mathew Cardingworth. Rich, smooth-talking and immaculately dressed, he presents himself as a successful, and respectable, property developer. Yet their encounter reawakens memories that have haunted Lennox for decades, sending him into a spiral of confusion and rage. 
 
Lennox has no choice – he must confront the events of his childhood. But the more he identifies the links between Cardingworth, the disappearance of a group of foster care boys and the violence of his past, the more he finds himself asking: 
 
What will he sacrifice to achieve resolution at last?

Trainspotting

A special edition of the cult classic

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… This book sings and, in the darkest moments, it shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

DOUGLAS STUART, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo

A beautiful hardback edition of the hilarious, dark, ingenious novel that changed the face of British fiction. 
 
Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. 
Choose life. 
 
'The best book ever written by man or woman... Deserves to sell more copies than the Bible' Rebel Inc 
 
'Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius' Sunday Times 
 
VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful

The Long Knives

The highly-anticipated second instalment in the CRIME trilogy, now a hit TV Series 
 
In Edinburgh, Detective Inspector Ray Lennox is investigating a brutal crime... 
 
Ritchie Gulliver MP is dead. Castrated and left to bleed in an empty Leith warehouse. Vicious, racist and corrupt, many thought he had it coming. But nobody could have predicted this. 
 
After the life Gulliver has led, the suspects are many - corporate rivals, political opponents, the countless groups he's offended. And the vulnerable and marginalised, who bore the brunt of his cruelty. 
 
As Lennox unravels the truth, and the list of shocking attacks grows, he must put his personal feelings aside. But one question refuses to go away: who are the real victims here? 
 
'Sharp, fearless, passionate and brilliant' Independent 
 
'An ingeniously plotted and propulsive thriller' Literary Review

An ingeniously plotted and propulsive thriller... bristling with risky satire and moral disgust.

If you like your crime dramas Scottish and sweary, this one's for you.

Evening Standard, *Books to Look Out For 2022*

A triumph... A great, redemptive book... It leaves you wanting more, much more

Powerful, passionate writing... Welsh gets it just right

Powerful... A bracing and engaging read

Sharp, fearless, passionate, and brilliant.

Intelligent, propulsive, passionate

Dead Men's Trousers

Fast and furious, scabrously funny and weirdly moving, this is the final chapter in the Trainspotting story.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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].

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

**A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
Mark Renton from Trainspotting is back – and he’s finally a success 
 
 An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He’s then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he’d been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and – much to Mark’s astonishment – doesn’t seem interested in revenge. 
 
 Sick Boy and Spud, who have agendas of their own, are intrigued to learn that their old friends are back in town, but when they enter the bleak world of organ-harvesting, things start to go so badly wrong. Lurching from crisis to crisis, the four men circle each other, driven by their personal histories and addictions, confused, angry – so desperate that even Hibs winning the Scottish Cup doesn’t really help. One of these four will not survive to the end of this book. 
 
Which one of them is wearing Dead Men’s Trousers? 
 
‘Welsh is on compulsively readable, searingly funny form’ The Times 
 
‘No one captures the competing affections and resentments that underpin lifelong friendships like Welsh’ Esquire

Vintage Minis

Rave

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

Irvine Welsh, 'poet laureate of the chemical generation', exposes the seamy underbelly of rave’s utopian dream. Lloyd, our permanently pilled-up protagonist, pushes his weekends to breaking point and beyond in this frazzled trip through Scottish clubland. He experiences the vertiginous uppers and downers of the Second Summer of Love, dabbles in a spot of disc jockeying and closes in, gradually, on some kind of redemption… 
 
Selected from Irvine Welsh's novel Ecstasy. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Dreams by Sigmund Freud 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Work by Joseph Heller

The Blade Artist

The most terrifying character in Trainspotting returns – with his own novel

Back to his violent best… Dark, gruesome and captivating.

It’s a thriller in the mode of Tarantino making war films or westerns; hiding grand themes within genre.

Intense, electrifying… Welsh has delivered a tremendously entertaining book – a whodunit, a thriller, and a probing character study – that’s obsessed with conflict, both physical and mental… A surprisingly poignant, evocative read – highly recommended.

In a year when filming begins on Danny Boyle’s sequel of sorts to Trainspotting, it seems perfect timing to revisit its most visceral force.

[Begbie’s] intelligence and instinct make him compelling, and Welsh keep the plot roaring along… This is a dark, guilty pleasure and written with – it seems to me – the cinema screen in mind.

Welsh's ear for dialect is superb, and the opportunity to observe Edinburgh's dark underbelly from the perspective of someone used to a gentler lifestyle far away leads to shrewd cultural insights.

While Welsh’s sense of humour is never far from the surface of his writings…this is very much a work of dark crime fiction rather than comedy or social satire with a touch of James Ellroy.

The Blade Artist is lean...clever and propulsive. The shorter length concentrates Welsh’s energy… There is a reason people still read him.

No one writes about violence and class with such wit and insight as Welsh. He’s a social satirist of the highest order and, with its themes of vengeance and redemption, this is a deceptively comic book with a very dark heart.

Welsh may be a reformed character but he's still got it, and The Blade Artist is fab.

This Ultra-violent but curiously redemptive new novel is both elegant and electrifying.

An ultra-violent odyssey through the darkest recesses of urban life.

Unique mix of raw Scots dialect, ultra-violence and sickening social comedy.

Offers biting social commentary and razor-sharp humour.

Welsh with his trademark wit and observation unpeels a layer of his character to offer an unsettling glimpse into Begbie’s psyche.

The dialogue is zippy, the pace rarely flags and Welsh is excellent on the milieu of the ageing career hard-man.

Maintains his forensic command of the Edinburgh demotic.

Welsh shows his hardman character in a new light.

Disturbing but also intensely gripping… If you’re a fan of intense character studies, you’ll kick yourself –violently- if you miss it.

Especially intriguing… it’s Welsh’s prose that gives the story its edge… The language really gets into your head, and you start thinking in Scots, and it’s one of the most immersive literary devices I’ve ever encountered

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, which indicates that 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 – ultra violent but curiously redemptive – and it marks the return of one of modern fiction’s most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.

Irvine Welsh

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

DOUGLAS STUART, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo (on Trainspotting)

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

No one captures the competing affections and resentments that underpin lifelong friendships like Welsh

It is the late 1980s, the closing years of Thatcher’s Britain. For the Trainspotting crew, a new era is about to begin – a time for hope, for love, for raving. 
 
Leaving heroin behind and separated after a drug deal gone wrong, Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie each want to feel alive. They fill their days with sex and romance and trying to get ahead; they follow the call of the dance floor, with its promise of joy and redemption. 
 
Sick Boy starts an intense relationship with Amanda, his ‘princess’ – rich, connected, everything that he is not. When the pair set a date for their wedding, Sick Boy sees a chance for his generation to take control at last. But as the 1990s dawn, will finding love be the answer to the group’s dreams or just another doomed quest? 
 
Irvine Welsh’s sequel to his iconic bestseller Trainspotting tells a story of riotous adventures, wild new passions, and young men determined to get the most out of life.

Irvine Welsh

Praise for Men in Love

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

Books by Irvine Welsh

Series by Irvine Welsh

The CRIME series3 Books

The Trainspotting Novels5 Books

Articles featuring Irvine Welsh

The Penguin books that shocked society

Extract: Resolution by Irvine Welsh

‘I don’t fear death’: 21 Questions with Irvine Welsh

Where to start with Irvine Welsh

Books that defined the 1990s

6 of our favourite author cameos in films – did you spot them?

Irvine Welsh and Miranda Sawyer in conversation at Spiritland

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter

Praise for Men in Love

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… It shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive

The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent

So propulsive...about as much fun as you can have between two book covers

Books by Irvine Welsh

Series by Irvine Welsh

The CRIME series3 Books

The Trainspotting Novels5 Books

Articles featuring Irvine Welsh

The Penguin books that shocked society

Extract: Resolution by Irvine Welsh

‘I don’t fear death’: 21 Questions with Irvine Welsh￼

Where to start with Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh and Miranda Sawyer in conversation at Spiritland

‘I don’t fear death’: 21 Questions with Irvine Welsh