Chris Brookmyre

He's clumsy and he feels like he's physically clumsy, but he feels like he's emotionally clumsy and he will accidentally damage people.

So he's crushed by guilt sometimes.

Yeah, but I think it's also classes at the heart of this book as well.

And he comes into contact with lots of middle class people and then upper class people.

And Danny needs this confidence in order to make any kind of leap at all because his future is pretty much set at this point because of his class and he's not going to escape it.

That combination of, what do you say, big self-confidence, low ego, or maybe it's the other way around.

It can be dangerous.

It can be really dangerous and sort of blow up with people.

But Danny seems to negotiate that and get away with it.

Yeah, I re-read it.

I mean, I've probably read it five or six times over the years, but it's a few years since I read it and I did actually tear up reading the end again.

It's probably because of the age I am and just a stage in life where you start looking back yourself at things so I could relate again.

But it's very tender and it's not tender in a cloying way.

It's in keeping with the character you've spent all this time with.

It's wistful.

But I think also it invites us to ask, is this the end?

Yes.

And we're invited to think, what happens next?

I was very surprised.

You've just outlined the version of the story that we're familiar with of the young woman who is taken advantage of or that she's faltering as she confronts a more complex, sophisticated society.