Since reading Trainspotting, when it came out in 1993, I have read all of Irvine Welsh's books and, to one degree or another, enjoyed them all, so - full disclosure - I came to Dead Men's Trousers as a massive and long time fan of Irvine Welsh's work. I don't really think this is a five-star literary novel, but I did get five stars-worth of enjoyment out of it. With at least two of the main characters comfortably sorted and sharing a rather saccharine 'happy ever after' ending, is this the end for the Trainspotting cast?

For example, there's an excellent chapter about Sick Boy's brother-in-law who is goaded into a shocking moment in which he destroys his family after his drinks are spiked with MDMA on Christmas. I rientri alla vecchia Edinburgo per far visita ai brandelli di famiglia rimasti in patria, sono doverosi ma sempre più penosi in occasione di ricorrenze vissute con acredine e distacco ( …in un miscuglio incessante di motivi pop natalizi dei Settanta e Ottanta ormai diventati un tale tormentone a ogni ritorno delle festività, che la gente bofonchia le parole sottovoce, come militari congedati per stress post-traumatico ).Far from it as events career out of hand, and the brother in law is shamed and outcast from the family home. La versione adulta dei Leith-boys va dall’inverosimile all’impossibile, le situazioni in cui vengono calati sono paradossali, ma da loro coetaneo sublimo la mia (discutibile) normalità e la mia (presunta) correttezza divertendomi un sacco. It seems that the psycho has mellowed, and is now an acclaimed arstist with a devoted wife and two lovely children. The tension was unreal, and when it finally happened I cried like a big embarrassment for about forty minutes. I've never understood the whole shebang of escapism with books, but if this is how satisfying it is, then who am I to judge.

And the events themselves alternate between the mundane and ham-fisted attempts at shock and revulsion, all of which are narratively confused. Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Sick Boy unsuccessfully argues that a woman can't be a nonce when trying to set a sex worker up with his underage nephew. However, his rants against Facebook and Google are just stale and his musings on neoliberal rapaciousness swallow. Welsh manages, however to imbue these characters with a sad humanity that makes them likable despite their obvious scumbaggerry.The blurb flags up that a major character is going to die and it's clear who the likely candidate is, but Welsh skilfully sows doubt right up to the tragedy occurring. The medium of prose itself is played around with as the hallucinatory trips are expressed by way of comics pages. The novel also features several cameo appearances from characters from the previous novels including Mikey Forrester and the hilarious Juice Terry. Desperate to just zoom through, to inhale the violence, the shagging, the plots, the revenge, I forced myself to go as slowly as possible and savour every moment.