MEANTIME by Frankie Boyle, read by Chris Reilly - audiobook extract

08/02/22 • 6 min

Glasgow, 2015. When Valium addict Felix McAveety's best friend Marina is found murdered in the local park, he goes looking for answers to questions that he quickly forgets. In a haze of uppers, hallucinogens and diazepam, Felix enlists the help of a brilliant but mercurial GP; a bright young trade unionist; a failing screenwriter; semi-celebrity crime novelist Jane Pickford; and his crisis fuelled downstairs neighbour Donnie. Their investigation sends them on a bewildering expedition that takes in Scottish radical politics, Artificial Intelligence, cults, secret agents, smugglers and vegan record shops. Meantime is a picaresque detective story set against the backdrop of post-referendum Scotland. Frankie Boyle's compelling debut novel is a tale of murder and revenge, and of personal and political loss.

Previous Episode

MILK TEETH by Jessica Andrews, read by Sarah Durham - audiobook extract

From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain. A girl grows up in the north of England amid scarcity, precarity and the toxic culture of heroin chic, believing that she needs to make herself smaller to claim presence in the world. Years later, as a young woman with unattainable ideals, she meets someone who calls everything into question, and is forced to confront episodes from her past. Their relationship takes her from London to Barcelona and the precipice of a new life, full of sensuality. Yet she still feels an uneasiness. In the sticky Mediterranean heat, among tropical plants and secluded beaches, she must decide what form her adult life should take and learn how to feel deserving of love and care.

Next Episode

LOVE AND OTHER HUMAN ERRORS by Bethany Clift, read by Chris Harper, Imogen Church & Jane Collingwood

An unforgettable story about love in all its chaotic glory from the author of Last One at the Party. The convention of a book synopsis is fundamentally ridiculous. How can I adequately convey in only 150 words the complexity and bewilderment of the past 10 months and the effect the events that occurred have had on my perfectly regulated existence? One would need much longer to record in detail how I was blackmailed into demonstrating the efficacy of my soulmate programme and forced to participate in a series of ridiculous dates. How my life has been forever altered as a consequence. Prior to this, I was driven and focused, consumed with work, destined to change the world with my brilliance. I had no family, no friends and no need for frivolous human connection. I was systemic and solitary, a woman with one goal. I am that person no longer. My name is Indiana Dylan, and this is the story of how I fell in love. There: 150 words precisely.