Our November/December issue i s available in bookshops as well as Waitrose, WHSmiths, Booth’s and Easons. 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 - those without a voice, without a choice, without a chance. You have the book out and a few days later we start filming [it]. We’re in pre-production now, so it’s kind of record time.” Trainspotting author Welsh said: “Real life is so grotesque and gruesome anyway. Politicians and leaders are all so grotesque and horrendous that I think, to get any attention, art has to be even more horrendous than them.”

If I’m just sitting there typing away thinking ‘this is nice, this is nice’ and nothing’s happening, then nothing’s going to happen for the reader either,” he said.You’re cut away from the rest of the world so you can concentrate on love and art, which are the only things you really want to concentrate on anyway,” he said. I really got into the actors and how they’re performing, so I thought ‘I’ll just sandwich another book in’ and that’s become the season. The Long Knives is the second in a trilogy about Edinburgh detective Ray Lennox, following 2008’s Crime. Ray Lennox pulls in a long breath. This fans rather than extinguishes the burning embers in his chest and calves. Fighting past the pain, he forces himself into a steady rhythm. At first it’s galling, then lungs and legs start working together like seasoned lovers rather than first-time daters. The crisp air carries the fresh whip of ozone. In Edinburgh, autumn often seems the default setting, no more than a rogue isobar away. But the towering trees are yet to shed, and weak sunlight dances through a canopy of leaves above him, as he bombs on down the footpath along the river. Premessa: con questo libro io e Irvine Welsh abbiamo festeggiato 30 anni di grande e smisurata amicizia. Correva infatti l'anno '93 quando ci conoscemmo grazie a Trainspotting. Questo solo per dire che ogni mio giudizio può essere influenzato da fattori quali l'affetto verso quel mondo e la conoscenza dei suoi personaggi e delle sue storie.

Probably what might have been is that it might’ve been shite. I can’t think of a working-class British writer who’s done massively well out of winning the Booker prize; it didn’t do [James] Kelman much good. Irvine Welsh has described politicians as “grotesque” as he revealed his latest novel is already on its way to screens. A critical consensus has built up over the years that there is Good Irvine Welsh and there is Bad Irvine Welsh. Good Irvine encompasses such generation-defining works as Trainspotting, The Acid House and Filth, while Bad Irvine covers such sloppy, repetitive, self-parodic novels as A Decent Ride and the many sequels and prequels to Trainspotting. His 2008 novel Crime, which follows the exploits of Edinburgh detective Ray Lennox as he hunts down paedophiles in Florida, was definitely Good Irvine, with its contorted moral dilemmas, fast-paced action and rich characterisation. Recently adapted into a television drama, Crime was the first part of a proposed trilogy centred on Lennox. The Long Knives is the second instalment. It’s definitely Good Irvine. At the end of the novel, Welsh even tries to give up on understanding any of it, with one of the detectives having the revelation that all this trans stuff is 'a distraction, mate, a petty diversion from the real farking issues.' Really he would've been better off focusing on all the stuff about elite Tory abusers. He had some good lines about all of that, but it felt like his heart wasn't really in it, which is strange and sad because his previous work he was really able to dig into this kind of thing. No, I’ve learned how to do that down the years. I didn’t know how to write a novel when I wrote Trainspotting. I had these loose stories that seemed to be heading somewhere; the start was going on too much about how they became junkies, so I cut it and went straight into their world and ended it with a heist ending I thought would be dramatic. Then I went on to The Acid House – more stories. Marabou Stork Nightmares was my first attempt at a conventional novel but it turned out quite experimental. I was just messing around in those first few books. They were probably the best ones, because then you learn how to write and you end up writing like everybody else [laughs].Welsh said: “I was a bit wary about that at first because I thought it was kind of a layer of censorship, but actually it was very enlightening for me, very educational.”

But this one does. More than their source at Colinton, this dark, narrow passageway evokes these terrible memories. He knows that despite its name, numerous deaths – including those of two children in the 1890s – have taken place in this tunnel. Lennox non si è mai davvero ripreso da un’aggressione che ne ha marchiato l’infanzia e i suoi incubi sono destinati a peggiorare, dovendo indagare sull’omicidio del deputato Ritchie Gulliver, brutalmente mutilato. Era un politico corrotto, razzista e pieno di nemici ma, rapidamente, i cadaveri si moltiplicano e il modus operandi non cambia, lasciando intendere la mente perversa di un serial killer. Finché, con la scomparsa di Fraser, il nipote dell’ispettore, tutto diventa dannatamente personale e i buoni propositi di Lennox per restare sulla retta via, vacillano pericolosamente.Crime isn’t one of my favourites, and I blame the Miami sun for that. I prefer Welsh’s characters to be floating in the grey setting of Edinburgh, leaning into the darkness of the culture, and operating on familiar territory. So this sequel taking place on its rightful soil was a huge draw. Not that I’d have given it a miss otherwise, ken. Cosa succede quando un esponente politico conservatore piuttosto noto viene brutalmente assassinato attraverso l'evirazione? E quando qualche tempo prima un altro pezzo grosso stava per subire la stessa sorte? Qualcuno tende a mettere i bastoni tra le ruote a chi indaga per non scoprire altri altarini sordidi. Ha senso andare avanti? Alla fine chi ha il coltello dalla parte del manico sembra farla sempre franca, a meno che non incontri qualcuno che ha parecchio da vendicare. Certain things did change. There’s certain things I just got wrong; I’m happy to be corrected. Other things [other responses] were quite affirmative. It was nice to have the motivation for what I was doing understood. The Long Knives’ is the second novel in which DI Ray Lennox is the main protagonist, the first being the novel ‘Crime’ and he also featured in the novel ‘Filth’ too. I had read Filth but hadn’t read ‘Crime’ prior to reading this novel, as it can be read as as a stand alone but I actually went and watched the television series, ‘Crime’ which was based on that novel and it gave me a bit of a flavour of what had went on prior to the events in this outing.

The first book was turned into a six-part TV series starring Dougray Scott – inspiring Welsh to write a follow-up, and filming on its TV adaptation is due to begin next week.

Addomesticati, rassicurati dai toni mansueti del giallo all’italiana, per il lettore italiano l’impatto con un vero noir è come uno schiaffo in faccia. Un effetto doccia fredda che si verifica puntualmente con le storie ideate da Irvine Welsh, il 64enne scozzese dagli occhi di ghiaccio, il creatore di Trainspotting, con il suo nuovo libro, I lunghi coltelli (Guanda, pp.384 €19,80)