Product Description

When down-at-heel Glasgow conjurer William Wilson gets booked for a string of cabaret gigs in Berlin, he's hoping his luck's on the turn. There were certain spectators from his last show who he'd rather forget. Like the one who's now a corpse. Amongst the showgirls and tricksters of Berlin's scandalous underground, Wilson can abandon his heart, his head and, more importantly, his past. But secrets have a habit of catching up with him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78700 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sometimes an author can make a considerable mark with their first book (as Louise Welsh did with The Cutting Room and almost immediately lose momentum with their next outing. The Bullet Trick is proof that Welsh is no one-trick pony, and this highly entertaining (if, at times, baffling) novel will be gratefully received by those who like their fiction eccentric and unabashed--Welsh doesn’t shy away from presenting us with the more extreme forms of human behaviour, sexual or otherwise.

The protagonist here is a Glaswegian conjurer who has seen better days. Those who know their literature of the Gothic (and Louise Welsh is certainly of that number!) will no doubt spot that the author has christened her anti-hero William Wilson--the same name, in fact, as the luckless hero of the Edgar Allen Poe tale of sinister duality. Welsh’s Wilson is desperate to escape from his crushing existence in Glasgow, and jumps at the chance to perform his conjuring tricks in the cabarets of Berlin. Leaving behind people who he most definitely wants out his life in this free and easy foreign city seems like the best move of his career. But Welsh implies that (like the Poe character with whom he shares his name), Wilson’s real problems lie within himself, with the external danger he encounters a manifestation of the sickness in his own soul.

If the above makes The Bullet Trick sound like a depressing read, nothing could be further from the truth. This is exuberant stuff, floridly plotted and crammed full of the kind of over-the-top characters that we encounter far too little these days in most parochial fiction. It's also worth noting the Welsh's second novel could not be more different from its predecessor, and if she is going to come up with something quite distinct with every new book, that alone is going to mark her out from most of her contemporaries.

--Barry Forshaw

Review
'The Bullet Trick is both funny and tragic, with an extraordinarily gripping plot and a wonderful cast of shady characters.' --Daily Mirror

Review
'Louise Welsh draws us into the half-light existence of cabaret performers in The Bullet Trick.'

Customer Reviews

Another good offering
Welsh's third novel is a really good offering.

William Wilson is a struggling magician who gets caught up in a missing person's and double murder case which he feels compelled to investigate.

The novel is set in three locations; London,Berlin and Glasgow. The structure is interesting as the novel slips backwards and forwards in time, however it remains easy to keep up with and more intriguing as a result.

The themes are similar to those we saw in her first novel 'The Cutting Room'; perversion, murder, intrigue and the darker side of life. Yet having sections of the book set in Berlin on the Burlesque circuit give it a Cabaret-esque feel. It's gritty without ever being gratuitous.

Really worth a read if you enjoyed The Cutting Room, but I did deduct one star for the ending which I felt was a bit of a let down.

Another good offering
Welsh's third novel is a really good offering.

William Wilson is a struggling magician who gets caught up in a missing person's and double murder case which he feels compelled to investigate.

The novel is set in three locations; London,Berlin and Glasgow. The structure is interesting as the novel slips backwards and forwards in time, however it remains easy to keep up with and more intriguing as a result.

The themes are similar to those we saw in her first novel 'The Cutting Room'; perversion, murder, intrigue and the darker side of life. Yet having sections of the book set in Berlin on the Burlesque circuit give it a Cabaret-esque feel. It's gritty without ever being gratuitous.

Really worth a read if you enjoyed The Cutting Room, but I did deduct one star for the ending which I felt was a bit of a let down.

Ultimately unsatisfying
Make no mistake, Louise Welsh is a very good and intelligent author. She creates sympathetic characters and brings an underlying eroticism to her story-telling. These factors combine to make the book a page turner. The problem is that I couldn't suspend disbelief. The plotting isn't tight enough and the resolution of the various plots is particularly weak.