Preview

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Blade Artist

By: Irvine Welsh
Narrated by: Tam Dean Burn
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.52

Buy for $14.52

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life - and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he's a fake and a con man while others see him as a genuine visionary.

But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge.

But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies - and, most alarmingly, his former self - Francis seems to have other ideas. When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California that indicates her husband's violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad very quickly.

The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel - ultraviolent but curiously redemptive - and it marks the return of one of modern fiction's most infamous, terrifying characters: the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.

©2016 Irvine Welsh (P)2016 Random House Audiobooks
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about The Blade Artist

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    12
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    17
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    10
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Welsh's best work since "Crime"

This is probably Welsh's best book since "Crime" and might even top that one. If you're a fan, you owe it to yourself to read this, especially if you've read "Trainspotting". If you're not, I still suggest giving this a go if you like your reading to be a little off the beaten path but still highly accessible and thoroughly rewarding...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Tam Dean Burn is magic. thanks mr. welsh, begbie

amazing character acting. stunning material. Welsh at a different tempo, but at his best nonethesless

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Strong work from Irvine Welsh

I have to admit I'm an Irvine Welsh fan, but I believe this is one of his best works. It's a very well paced story about one of his most notorious and memorable characters, Frank Begby and the double life he has come to live.

Tam Dean Burn does a great job as always.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!