The Cutting Room

Reviews / Votes

One of the most intriguing, assured and unputdownable debuts to come out of Scotland in recent years . . . A stunning work of fiction * * Sunday Times * * A remarkable first novel * * New York Times * * I was hooked from page one. Rilke is not Welsh's only great creation. The huge supporting cast of misfits and outsiders . . . are equally memorable. And Glasgow becomes a character in itself: it is oppressive, foreboding - a dark place for a dark tale * * Guardian * * Astonishingly this is a first novel, catapulting Welsh straight into the superstar league, while establishing Rilke as a true original * * The Times * * Welsh upturns tropes and adds depth, seedy detail and Gothic lyricism to the page-turner framework * * Telegraph * * The Cutting Room fixes itself among a formidable modern pantheon that includes the novels of Ian McEwan and A.L. Kennedy * * LA Times Book Review * * This elegiac, elegant and atmospheric book is an original and compelling first novel. Rarely can such Gothic material have been treated with such subtlety * * Daily Telegraph * * Welsh's prose can flit from clipped and short to elegant and graceful . . . As taut a thriller as you'll get; full of unexpected alliances, double crosses and a brutal denouement worthy of classic American hard-boiled fiction * * Big Issue * * Welsh succeeds in making Glasgow her own * * Observer * * An astonishingly accomplished debut, this is always in my top ten books of any genre . . . Welsh brilliantly draws a gothic Glasgow of despair and decay as she lays bare the depths of human deviance * * Guardian, Top 10 Scottish crime novels * * Glasgow has its own personality, expertly evoked in scenes of Gothic suspense as Rilke moves through the city. The characters are a spooky mixture of the charismatic and the devious * * TLS * * In Louise Welsh crime fiction has one of its few real literary writers. The Cutting Room is a startling debut novel, a genuinely creepy, grisly little tale with as sure a grip on the vernacular style as on its more erudite passages . . . Assured and memorable. Crime fiction may have its prize-winner at last * * Independent * * Gleefully black * * Guardian * * A captivating novel * * Vogue * * Scottish author Welsh's debut remains one of her most intriguing works, an atmospheric tale of death and desire in Glasgow * * i * * Welsh is certainly talented and she handles her material with aplomb * * Daily Mail * * Archly composed and cleverly constructed . . . Welsh's willingness to foreground such big, unsettling questions makes The Cutting Room much more memorable than the usual ambient noir fare * * Washington Post * * What makes The Cutting Room so gripping is the combination of suspense and character as the story unfolds through the unusual eyes of Rilke . . . His horror, like the reader's, lies in the terrible intimacy, impersonality and irreversibility of what he witnesses * * Herald * * Adding to the power of this stylish thriller is Welsh's gritty evocation of contemporary Glasgow in all its aspects, from bars and porn shops to quiet suburbs and auctions. But most impressive is the figure of Rilke himself, driven on by his compulsively inquisitive nature and cool intelligence to decode every last mystery that the cutting room holds * * Red * * Dark and twisty * * Publishers Weekly * *