Book review The Herald Newspaper - Family Man

There are boxes of frogs that would boycott this mad novel for stealing their thunder. Family Man follows A Working Class State of Mind and Who’s Aldo? as the third book to feature Aldolfo Ali, the son of Portobello-based Indian restaurateurs, whose strategic thinking, daring and dramatic flair have carried him to the top of Edinburgh’s crime ladder.

Gritty, violent and written in a strong East Coast dialect, it contrasts the seedy pub backrooms of Granton and Leith with Aldo’s domestic life as he juggles the dirty jobs required of a gangster with the responsibility of attending his teenage daughter’s football matches, and supplements his wife’s vegetarian repertoire with the occasional cheeky burger.

Aldo is a personable narrator with a happy home life, and each layer of quirkiness he reveals to us only makes him more fascinating. But we’re always at least slightly on edge, thanks to constant reminders that Aldo is a man who will bump off members of his own crew without hesitation, employs a torturer and side-hustles as a pimp. A pimp who’ll wreak bloody revenge if his workers are abused, but a pimp nonetheless.

And yet somehow the humour and easy charm of his narration keep us onside, along with Burnett’s distinctive approach to crime writing. Most bizarre is the centrality to Aldo’s life of Bruce, a relationship all his men know to treat with the utmost respect. Is this a younger lover, an Adonis-like youth he parades at gang meetings like Ronnie Kray? No, Bruce is his Staffordshire Terrier. I haven’t read the previous two Aldo books, but Bruce’s presence is the reason I don’t doubt that they’re as batshit brilliant as this one.

Aldo worships Bruce, organising his home life around the Staffie’s needs. “We’ve goat a delicate ecosystem in this hoose,” Aldo admits, and the one who’ll give him the most grief if it’s disrupted is his dog. He not only talks to Bruce, but believes he can understand all his “strongly-worded howls”. News and current affairs programmes are banned, lest the dog retreat to the kitchen for a sweary political rant. “Hinkin aboot gittin the wee man tested for autism, actually” ended up as my favourite line in the book.

Not quite a novel nor a collection of short stories, Family Man derives great enjoyment from playing both sides. The first two chapters feel like a good set-up for a novel exploring the consequences of Aldo lending a cop some extra-judicial assistance, and it’s a slight shame that Burnett didn’t develop that story further. Instead, we move through vignettes about dodgy landlords, arson, an alien encounter (told you it was odd), a Christmas home invasion and the incursion into Edinburgh of Colombian gangsters, with many violent encounters in between. With a contrariness that is beginning to look characteristic of Burnett, some of these vignettes are tightly self-contained while others ooze past the bounds of their assigned chapters.

Starring the kind of guy who would not only bring a gun to a peace negotiation but insist on using it, Family Man packs a lot into only 164 pages. Fast, funny and idiosyncratic, it will gladden those who like their crime on the offbeat side

 

Link to Family Man if you fancy checking it out. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1913836614/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1