Things can get overheated in a small Scottish town, even in the depths of winter. Outside it’s so cold they’re curling on the tennis court, but inside the head of Patrick Hunter, eighteen-year-old auctioneer’s assistant, the blood is boiling.

Fuelled by a potent mix of stovies and beer, Patrick spends a November weekend racing around the hills and dens, half in escape from worn-out friends, drudging work and painful memories, half in pursuit of sex, laughs, a witches’ Sabbath, a message-bike handed down through the generations…and himself.

Duncan McLean’s book of stories, Bucket of Tongues, received high praise for its ‘crisp snapshots of Scotland’s seamier side’ (The Face). His first novel is just as fast-moving, as painfully funny and as telling in its eye for the small details of speaking, eating, loving, playing and working that make up our lives. The characters are as lively as before, but less defeated, the humour is warmer, more generous, and the vision of contemporary rural life is enriched by an awareness of the past. Blackden is an outstanding novel by one of our most talented writers.