Quotes about Muscle

Press

‘Dazzling . . . Trotter is a very fine writer, and Muscle is an unadulterated ultraviolent delight.’
Toby Litt, The Guardian
Muscle by Alan Trotter review – a new take on noir | Books | The Guardian

‘This is a remarkable, radical, historical novel… You are practically strapped into a broken chair in a smoky, dingy room and forced to watch a writer at play, to watch his imagination, and what imaginations he gives his characters, zoom.’ 
Todd McEwen, The Herald &The National
Book review: Muscle by Alan Trotter | HeraldScotland
Book review: Muscle by Alan Trotter | The National

‘Amid the violence and vendettas, it’s the intricate, razor-sharp prose that really hits you . . . Reading Muscle is like being thwacked in the stomach by Marlon Brando after he has just recited the works of Milton from memory.’ 
Benn Sheridan, Literary Review
Benn Sheridan - Growing Pains | Literary Review | Issue 472

‘Muscle turns the noir novel on its head . . . The book is also a hall of mirrors, a series of stories-within-stories that subvert the genre conventions of noir, sci-fi/fantasy and odd-couple comedy. It is unpredictable from page to page, and for that alone it is a unique debut.’ 
Ben Myers, New Statesman 
Alan Trotter’s Muscle turns the noir crime novel on its head

‘A novel of strange ennui and sudden horror, of stories within stories within stories . . . When it all converges, it does so with the elegance of an unpicked safe.’ 
Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

‘Makes you rethink what fiction can do . . . Trotter brings so many ideas, themes and influences to bear that mere pages struggle to contain them.’ 
Alistair Braidwood, Scots Whay Hae
Being Boiled: A Review Of Alan Trotter’s Muscle… | Scots Whay Hae!

‘Witty and fascinating all at once . . . A dark and addictive fever dream.’
Heather McDaid, The Skinny
Muscle by Alan Trotter - Book Review: The Skinny

‘A sumptuous feast out of the pared-down, laconic language of pulp noir and hardboiled detective novels…Muscle is a rollicking good time.’ 
Daniel Davis Wood, Splice
The Genre Always Wins: Alan Trotter’s Muscle – Splice

‘Reads like a tragi-comic mash-up of Elmore Leonard and Samuel Beckett . . . Trotter is undoubtedly a writer to watch.’ 
Andrew Taylor, The Spectator
Where would we be without crime’s heavies? Muscle, by Alan Trotter, reviewed | The Spectator

‘Essential reading … Bold, blackly comic and satisfying, this page-turner’s sure got smarts.’ 
The Sunday Telegraph

People

‘What a rare and accomplished debut this is – it teases out classic noir riffs and set-ups but in a language sinuous enough, and with invention ripe enough, to make them feel new.’ 
Kevin Barry

‘Muscle unfolds like a series of Russian dolls, each more Beckettian, winding and wonderful than the one before. Compelling enough to read in one gulping go.’ 
Daisy Johnson

‘A breathless, breakneck debut; a dizzying amalgam of exploded hard-boiled-isms, modernist acrobatics and halucinatory sci-fi, propelled by relentlessly inventive prose.’ 
David Keenan

‘Muscle bowled me over. The language of it – the complete boldness and control. A striking debut from a fierce talent.’
Jess Kidd

‘A dazzling, muscular debut that is as gritty as it is absurd, Muscle manages to surprise at every turn.’
Nikesh Shukla