Top ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week they have given a little bit of a free rein with the choice of a Top Ten set wherever you choose. After what was probably excess consideration, I decided on a Top Ten set in Scotland.

1. Emotionally Weird – Kate Atkinson. It’s a while since I read this one. Effie is desperate to know who her father is but her mother isn’t about to give her the details straightaway. What follows are typical Atkinson characters and strange tales.
2. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks. Perhaps the ultimate Scottish novel. Frank, the narrator is disturbed, describing the strange rituals and killings he has carried out.
3. White Nights – Anne Cleeves – I’ve only read two of this series so far and I preferred this one to the first because it the main characters seemed more fully drawn. The Shetland setting is important to the story with the constant light of the summer months affecting people’s mental stability.
4. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway. Joy, the narrator, is depressed and struggling with her job, her boyfriend and life in general. The narrative reflects her fractured thought processes.
5. A Disaffection – James Kelman – This is one of my favourite books of all time. Patrick, a teacher, becomes sickened by his job, his life – everything really – and slowly goes about destroying everything he has.
6. The Distant Echo – Val McDermid – This was the first McDermid I read and it was compelling from start to finish. Four friends are suspected of a murder but there is no evidence. Now, twenty five years later, the case is reopened and a stranger is out for revenge.
7. Rebus series – Ian Rankin. It is impossible for me to pick a favourite from these books. They are all superb and definitely could not be set anywhere else. Rankin’s descriptions of Edinburgh and the surrounding area are one of the main reasons I keep returning to this series.
8. The Devil’s Carousel – Jeff Torrington. A series of stories set in a car plant in Renfrewshire, this is as funny as it is depressing.
9. Morvern Caller – Alan Warner – Okay, so this is only partly set in Scotland but it is still Scottish through and through. Morvern wakes up to find her boyfriend has committed suicide but her reaction to this is not what you would expect. Superbly disturbing.
10. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh – The first and still the best of Welsh’s novels. This completely blew me away the first time I read it and every time I have re-read it since. There is still nothing like it.