Tommy the Bruce
James Yorkston
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From the publisher
An unsettling, atmospheric noir set in the remote Scottish Highlands, perfect for fans of Close to Home by Michael Magee, Elmet by Fiona Mozley, The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin and Pine by Francine Toon
Meet Tommy Bruce - he's washed-up already, marooned in a ramshackle hotel inherited from dead parents in the armpit of Perthshire, that's just too far off the main tourist trail to be viable. He's too young to be middle-aged, but too old to be what you could call young (and too lazy to care about it, really). Saddled with debt, grotty premises that are falling down around him and a crippling loneliness, Tommy is slowly but determinedly drinking himself and his business out of existence.
Until one day into the lounge-bar, and out of the blue, walks Fiona McLean. And before long she's moved behind the bar, into the hotel and (remarkably) into Tommy's bed. Fiona blows into Tommy's life and through the hotel, and with the light she brings, Tommy's fortunes might just be turning around; but in her wake has also slipped in darkness - names and faces from the past who mean Tommy no goodwill at all, criminal forces that threaten to ruin him, the hotel and what little happiness he's managed, haplessly, to cobble together.
Tommy the Bruce is a precise, chilling and all too believable crime novel - scored throughout with a genuinely unsettling menace, which is belied by the ease of Yorkston's storytelling and humour. It's a shot of Southern Gothic poured out in the central Highlands. And in Tommy himself we've an anti-hero as unlike his historical namesake as could be imagined - shoulderless, very nearly spineless and not at all the man to save himself, Fiona and their future. Until you push him too far...