TO BE FRANK

by Kevin Christie

(The Book Guild, £9.99)

CARDS on the table. I’ve spent most of a lifetime as an old school print journalist and editor, latterly negotiating the choppy waters of the digital revolution and the decline of what commentators cruelly now like to describe as “legacy media”. 

So, yes, former Scotsman columnist Kevan Christie had me by page three of his debut novel, in which protagonist Frank Savage bemoans the triumph of trite over truth; clickbait over credible content. I’ve been there myself, got the T-shirt.

Kevan Christie

To Be Frank is a razor-sharp satire of the ‘News Space Of The Future’. I recognise all too well the email management speak, the continual hunger for efficiency economies, the Christmas redundancy rounds and the frustration of journalists.

“Providing a list of ten shops that have disappeared from the high street is a Google search, not a skill,” laments Frank.

But it’s more than that.

Old school print journalism newsroom

Christie has crafted a criminally good read which somehow manages to cross gritty Tartan Noir with wry NSFW (unless you’re in a 1970s newsroom) wit. Set in present-day Edinburgh, it’s populated by a roster of rogues and reprobates, most of them unashamedly unlikable.

We meet gangsters, bullies (human and of the XL variety), loan sharks, media mediocrities, fading pop performers, corrupt councillors and pompous politicians. Oh, and did I mention a former US rock star and a Russian gymnast assassin?

Journalists in a modern digital newsroom

At the heart of the piece – and it does have a heart despite all the bluster – is the relationship between Frank and his daughter, Naomi, just up from London on a mission to renovate an old cinema and launder some syndicate money in the process.

And then there’s the small matter of Frank’s swansong column, which unexpectedly goes viral. Well, if you call for dogs and babies to be banned from all restaurants and cafés, what do you expect? Apart from my vote, that is?

That’s not a spoiler, by the way. You’ll learn that much just by reading the blurb on the book jacket.

Like I said, Frank had my sympathy early doors and I came to love him despite his foibles, praying for him not to grasp yet another unerring defeat from the jaws of victory. Mayhem ensues every time he finds himself outside his (usually inebriated) comfort zone.

The conclusion is satisfactory, if leaving the door ajar for further shameless Scottish shenanigans, and Christie is even now writing a sequel, championed by the likes of Dept Q stars Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives. I’ll be joining the crowd again at the Hadd, to be frank.

• I received a copy of To Be Frank in exchange for an independent and honest review as a member of the Love Books Tours team of influencers. Learn more about the programme here.