James Yorkson (2025) Tommy the Bruce.

I read the biography before the book. James Yorkson is an acclaimed musician. Fuck—right—off, I thought. Another gobshite who in his spare time writes best-selling novels. I had to give it a couple of pages before I had to eat my words. Well, his words. A page turner. Tommy the Bruce is great, just my kind of book.

There’s a theory called ‘muddling on’. In Scotland it’s called ‘jist getting on wae it’. Tommy hasn’t much of a life. But he does have a hotel in rural Perthshire that his da had built up and he’s running down so fast he might need to do something about it— on another day, maybe tomorrow. Old Jock is his one regular at the bar, but Tommy tends to drink more than his mucker and paying customers.

Fi wanders in, orders a gin and tonic, and changes his life.

She’s young and pretty, with plans. Full of vim. Everything he’s not.

Plots don’t come much simpler. Truth is beauty.

Truth can also be a cunt Fi brings to live with them. She’s repaying an old debt to an old friend. Simon Blair, Fi’s ex. He’s in prison. But he needs a job and somewhere to stay.

A rundown hotel—which is on the up and up—can provide both.

Tommy isn’t daft. He’s caught het. Trouble is coming to stay. But it won’t be for long. They can muddle through. Tommy and Fi and their baby.

Simon, of course, has a plan that doesn’t include cleaning shitey toilets.  

A crime thriller rooted in desperate Scottish characters in a rundown pish-hole. What’s not to like? Something has got to give. Read on.

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