Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase It seems that Welsh delivers his best writting when concerned with the Trainspotting world, Skagboys, Trainspotting, Porno and now The Blade Artist. Maybe Welsh – like Begbie – needs to make a break with his past. The reviews are wrong, the Blade Artist was fantastic. The Blade Artist (2016) is the eleventh novel by Irvine Welsh, and unusually focuses primarily on one member of "The Leith Mythos", the infamous Scottish hardman/psychopath Francis "Franco" Begbie.Picking up in the present day many years after the events of Porno, Franco has done what nobody can fathom and gone straight, via the classic Choose Life monologue (the non-snarky version) … 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. • To order The Blade Artist for £10.39 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. T he Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh 288pp, Jonathan Cape, £12.99, ebook £9.49. Marked by Irvine Welsh’s scabrous humor and raw Scottish vernacular, Skagboys transports us to 1980s Edinburgh, where the Trainspotting crew is just getting started. The Blade Artist is a long way from the vivacious amorality of Trainspotting, all the more obviously so because it’s stamping the same ground. 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. The location is an Edenic beach in sun-soaked California, the focal consciousness an apparently ideal Jim Francis holding up his equally Edenic daughter Eve to the sunlight. The location is an Edenic beach in sun-soaked California, the focal consciousness an apparently ideal Jim Francis holding up his equally Edenic daughter Eve to the sunlight. Listen to Blade Artist audiobook by Irvine Welsh. Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. 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 … 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....more Still, Welsh's taste for grand guignol is preferable in every sense to the novel's fatal flaw. The blade artist, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Cape/libri. He has also written plays and … Read more Read less click to open popover Special offers and product promotions The blade artist, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Cape/libri. This book focuses on dear old Franco Begbie, now reinvented as artist Jim Francis. 9781784700553 at the best online prices at eBay! It is fair to say that I loved The Blade Artist and my only critique would be that it was over too quickly. In The Blade Artist, Irvine Welsh returns to the life of Francis Begbie, one of the protagonists of his debut Trainspotting (1993), its sequel Porno (2002) and prequel Skagboys (2012). Irvine Welsh has been getting it from the reviewers and his books haven't been great recently, Siamese Twins was very poor and his attempt at comedy with Decent Ride missed the mark by quite a bit but the Blade Artist is excellent.