Smoke: A Novella [Kindle Edition]

So this is how it went for me last night. I went to bed thinking I'd make a start on Nigel Bird's brand new novella SMOKE and then hopefully manage to get some sleep in. Two hours later I was still reading. Feeling guilty that it was 3am I turned off the light, only to switch it back on at 4.30am to finish reading this superb tale about the high jinx that two young lads get up to in Tranent.

Today will probably call for a sneaky nap at some point but do you know, this story is well worth losing sleep over . What an excellent storyteller Bird is in this tale of love and revenge.

The story alternates between its two main characters, Jimmy and Carlos. Jimmy is still at school, theoretically, but is one of those lads who has fallen through the cracks in the system and is more likely to be seen pounding the streets of his local community begging smokes or getting blitzed out of his head with his mates.

Carlos has a swanky new motorised wheelchair, top notch, and was Jimmy's sister's boyfriend before somebody tied him to a railway line and he lost an arm and a leg. After a long period of therapy he's back on the local scene and hopes that Kylie will take him back and will allow him access to their young son. Problems start when Kylie declares that the child isn't his.........

If you want to know what else happens, go read it for yourself and plenty does happen involving fighting dogs, a Ford Capri and a steam iron.

If you want to understand what is happening in contemporary society in Scotland then Bird is handing it to you here on a plate; kids who have been failed by the education system, poor housing, poor employment and training opportunities, teenage pregnancies, alcohol and drug misuse and a criminal sub culture. Sounds bleak but for many youngsters growing up today, this is their reality and Bird moves into this world with such ease and makes these characters real instead of government statistics.

There's lots of humour too. I loved the idea of Jimmy's trousers being flown over the school instead of one of those awful eco flags.

Mostly Bird writes about how people care for each other; Jimmy's tenderness with his little nephew, his pride in his father, his love for his sister and even in the middle of a cesspool of aggression and violence Bird shows the love Mickey has for Leo, his dog.

If you haven't used that little clicky finger today yet then go use it now, this is a truly great piece of writing with characters that will live long in your mind. I really hope to find out what adventure Jimmy has next. How about it Nigel?

'Smoke' is the first novella from the pen of the accomplished, Nigel Bird - critically acclaimed short-story writer extraordinaire, and proper nice bloke to boot.

Being familiar with Nigel Bird's bitter-sweet short-stories, I was fascinated to see how trying his hand at a longer piece would turn out. This novella is a little different from many of the aforementioned short-stories in that the writing voice is unashamedly Scottish. And brilliantly so. I think of all the UK short-story writers plying their trade at the moment, along with the inimitable Mr Paul D. Brazill, Bird is the one writer that has most successfully found a voice for the US market. That being so, I loved the fact he's returned to his Scottish roots for 'Smoke'.

'Smoke' centres around a lad called Jimmy. Not a bad lad, but a lad who gets into the odd scrape every now and then. In 'Smoke', one of these particular scrapes involves the psychotic Ramsay Brothers and their incredibly vicious, and incredibly well-written, dog-fighting competition, and also a one-armed, one-legged bloke in a motorised wheelchair, called Carlos. The bloke is called Carlos, I hasten to add, not the wheelchair.

Carlos is the other central character - along with Jimmy - and provides the comic edge to what is a primarily gritty story.

The pace of 'Smoke' is first class, whizzing along like Carlos involuntarily descending a hill into traffic - a terrific scene in the book - and a definition of noir itself. The characters in 'Smoke' are well-rounded, the dialogue top drawer, the ending a satisfying conclusion to a cracking tale.

Imagine you're strolling down a pleasant rustic road in Tuscany on a sunny day. You turn a corner and come upon a country chapel. It's a simple church, white on the outside with a steeple. Why not, you think, and go inside. You pass the old oaken doors, enter the main room, look up . . . and that's all you remember for a while. The stained glass windows glow as the sun passes through them. You look closer and see they are one incredible mosaic. Each bit of brilliant glass melts into the other until they form a multifracted painting of -- everything. Small houses with dark shadows in the windows. Cafes bright with neon and billowing grease from rusted smokestacks. Alleys containing monsters -- terrible beyond even the ones in H. Bosche's dreadful visions -- clawing innocents and innocence apart with a foul glee. Maddened animals tearing each other to pieces under a blood-red winter sky. People doing the same to people. Horrifying. Yet, buried in the cacophony of nightmare, other people caught performing acts of such incredibly pure humanity you feel your eyes sting at the beauty. There is beauty here and a knight resurrected from the hell he put himself into. Babies smile and poop and squirt their urine like tiny fountains when their swaddling is removed. Laughter. Screams. The mosaic swirls around you and carries you to a simple ending place. A single jewel, shining brightly, shot through with the colors of redemption. When that one single point releases you, you stumble up the quiet road. Your are eyes and your heart filled with one single shining jewel called, Hope.

Yeah, it's like that. Believe me. Take a look. The mosaic is waiting for you.