Family Man by Colin Burnett. Review!

I'm very pleased to annnounce the publication of Colin Burnett's new book 'Family Man'

'Adolfo Ali makes his long-awaited return in this fast-moving and unpredictable third outing. Complex anti-hero, Aldo, is the de facto head of Edinburgh’s most powerful crime family. But being a crime boss isn’t what it used to be. Not only does Aldo need to balance his duties running his crew of killers and psychotic hitmen, but he also needs to hope and pray that one or two secrets stay dead and buried. As rival criminal organisations start threatening his authority on the Scottish capital’s streets, Aldo is tested like never before. At home, Aldo shows his softer side, devoted to his partner Roxy and committed to being a loving dad to Jennifer — and to Bruce the Staffy, his heir apparent.'

Link to buy:  https://tinyurl.com/3ze547k2

Here's a review by our very own celticman:

Colin Burnett (2026) Family Man: The Third Book of Aldo. 

Adolfo Ali, or Aldo, is a Family Man you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. He grew up and went to school in Leith and took a shine to Craig and Dougie even when he was taking their pocket money off them—they still follow the Hibs and have a pint together. Aldo’s protection had grown to include the whole of Edinburgh, including nightclubs, prostitution, and drug dealing. As the bells ring out for 2026, the blather on the telly, the countdown for Hogmanay and the fireworks for Edinburgh’s international jamboree marks Aldo’s unofficial coronation as the Godfather of Scotland’s capital. 

Aldo has a great belief in the capitalist maxims. He’ll take what is his and he’ll take what is yours. But he’s a Family Man. Rox or Roxy is his boss. She calls the shots and doesn’t need a gun. When she serves him up lettuce leaves, he eats them like a man, but nips away to have an illicit cheeseburger with all the trimmings. What does and doesn’t dae has a lot to do with A Working Class State of Mind.    

Dialect. Scottish words you can chew on. Aldo’s crew include the kind of run-of-the mill psychopaths wae names like Markie and Ryan and Nate, but there’s other such as Tizer, Chernobyl, Shadow and Sunshine. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Sunshine. He enjoys his work a bit too much. And would make a meeting with Bible John seem like a family outing.   

God help the man that battered Aldo’s eighteen- year-old daughter Jennifer (Jen) outside an exclusive nightclub, because nobody else is big enough to contain Aldo’s wrath. 

When Leith Star Girls’ Football team, Jen’s team, lost their manager to cancer, Aldo plotted to replace him with somebody he knew. Leon Murray. Readers won’t have heard of Murray. But read between the lines and it’s Hib’s legend Leigh Griffith, who owes Aldo a (gambling) debt. Personally, I wouldn’t be allowing Griffiths anywhere near an underage girls’ team. But I guess Aldo has his soft side or his daft side. 

Brucie the dog is a resident example. He can practically talk. Aldo doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of Brucie. 

So when his mate Cragie is saddled with Brucie for the weekend, it’s a sacred duty. And Cragie needs tae be more careful than a punter grilled by the DWP. Some things are above him. Bonnriggs Not Bonnybridge, but it is home to a UFO encounter of the second or third kind, but nobody’s counting. Not even Brucie the wonderdog,  but the dog is banjaxed. Craigie needs to make up a story that Aldo will believe.   

It’s not just ley lines that run through Scotland and beyond. Class and race are a given. When Aldo catches up with a lad tied to a chair that firebombed his mum and da’s restaurant (I first read this account on ABCTales), he takes an inquisitive tone to a cloned Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage foot soldier:

‘Being fae Pilton ah’m guessin yuv heard aw the nasty stories regarding my reputation… Ah hope yae dinnae mind me askin this? Ah’m jist curious, is aw. Dae yae really buy intae that right-wing pish that Williams spouts?  Ken? that immigrants are tae blame fur everything fae climate change tae the price of butter?’ 

The young lad sees the error of his ways too late. But most others—not tied to a chair with a plastic bag over their head—don’t.  That right-wing pish has grown arms and legs and a place at the head of the table in the White House. That’s why we need more voices like Colin Burnett because very few published writers are working class, even fewer risk writing in dialect (a much smaller market to aim for) and few others write with such understanding and working-class humour about what it is to be or not be—unashamedly—us. Read on