Bruce Robertson, a police officer in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a character that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify with. At the start of this racy account of life in modern Scotland, Robertson's wife has just left him, his holiday trip to Amsterdam is in jeopardy and he has developed a horrible rash on his thighs, buttocks and genitals, not to mention that he has been put in charge of a high profile murder case with serious racial undertones. Scotland is a world in which Robertson participates daily, while many of Welsh's other characters were merely on the fringe of this world. The problem the reader is presented with is the impossibility of liking Robertson. His character is the protagonist that everyone hates, and this, as every novelist knows, can be deadly.
Welsh somehow pulls it off.
Toward the end, readers may actually find themselves rooting for this diabolical human being. That's where the real genius of the work is revealed.