Filth

By Irvine Welsh,

Book cover of Filth

Book description

With the Christmas season upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of Edinburgh's finest is gearing up socially—kicking things off with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam.


There are some sizable flies in the ointment, though: a missing wife and child, a nagging cocaine habit, some painful below-the-belt eczema,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Filth as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The main character, Bruce Robertson, is repulsive. But there’s something deeply funny about a pathologically miserable bastard.

Bruce does and says terrible things, he believes terrible things, he plays sadistic tricks against coworkers (he’s a detective sergeant in Edinburgh). But the thing that really makes me squirm about Bruce is the food he eats and how he goes about eating it. Despite Bruce’s repellent nature, Welsh’s approach to the character is magical.

I was locked in from the first page—I couldn’t look away—and the glints and glimmers of Bruce’s humanity ultimately made my heart break.

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