The Ossians - by Doug Johnstone (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A last-chance winter road trip for a Scottish band spirals into wild chaos--seagull massacres, bomb tests, and darkly funny rock'n'roll madness on the edge. A raw, darkly funny novel by one of Scotland's finest authors--newly reissued!

ANNIVERSARY EDITION

INTRODUCTION BY VAL MCDERMID

Connor is twenty-four, brilliant, broken, and out of control. He's the swaggering frontman of The Ossians, a Scottish indie band on the brink of signing a major record deal.

Desperate to make their mark, they head off on a two-week winter tour across the cities and hinterlands of Scotland--a last-ditch attempt to find fame, purpose, and themselves.

But the tour soon spirals into a surreal, chaotic odyssey. From seedy bars and snowbound towns to a final, defining Glasgow gig, the band hurtles through a whirlwind of seagull massacres, botched drug deals, a mysterious stalker, radioactive beaches, bomb-testing ranges, epileptic fits, riotous Russian submariners, deadly storms, epiphanies, regular beatings and random shootings.

Raw, darkly funny and wild with energy, The Ossians is a gloriously anarchic story of rock'n'roll obsession, national identity and self-destruction, and what it means to belong--in a band, in a country, in a life unravelling at speed.

About the Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of Fourteen novels, including The Great Silence, the third in the Skelfs series, which has been optioned for television. In 2021, The Big Chill, the second in the series, was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, while in 2020, A Dark Matter, the series opener, was shortlisted for both the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the Capital Crime Amazon Publishing Independent Voice Book of the Year Award.

The series continued with Black Hearts (book four, 2022) and The Opposite of Lonely (book five, 2023). Several of Johnstone's books have been bestsellers and award winners, and his first science fiction novel, The Space Between Us, was selected as a BBC2 Between the Covers pick.

Alongside writing, Johnstone has taught creative writing, served as a writer-in-residence at various institutions, and worked as an arts journalist for over twenty years. A musician and songwriter, he has released five albums and three EPs and plays drums for the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers band. He lives in Edinburgh.