The Glister

"I did a review of this for The Guardian and it is a bit of a misnomer to call it a crime book. The thing that I like about this book is that there is this chemical plant that has poisoned everyone, which becomes a bit of a character in the book. John Burnside is a fantastic writer and a great poet as well and you can see the poetic influence in the writing. It really draws you in and you actually feel like you are in the plant. It is just very, very spooky. It is basically a bunch of kids in this town blighted by unemployment, which could be anywhere. These kids start to go missing and it is suspected that there is some kind of predatory serial killer on the loose. And this bright kid goes down into the chemical plant and gets entangled in the world down there. I have always been interested in failure and how we fail and why we fail. I want to know why we self-sabotage and why we are drawn to doing things that make us uncomfortable. I think that we learn much more through failure than success. I think that success just teaches you to be smug and complacent. Failure is basically the human condition and that is why we are so fascinated by death and decay because it is where we are going. Yes, but I think the classic crime novel in the high street book stores is more about the avoidance of that, because everything is resolved and life goes on. People want to read about how the dark side can be beaten and treated."