A Fine House in Trinity

October 3, 2016
Joseph “Stainsie” Staines, the down-on-his-luck hero of British author Kelly’s comical but flat debut, left Edinburgh with cash in his pocket and the tally book of the much-feared Isabella Stoddart in his possession. Now the money is gone, Isabella—the mother of Lachie, Stainsie’s childhood thug pal—is dead, and Stainsie is the heir. Except it’s not money he’s getting but a rundown mansion in the city’s posh Trinity section, the perfect spot for a guy with no place to stay to crash—and an excellent spot for the police to find a corpse. Stainsie, who seems to have run afoul of the whole of Edinburgh, must not only persuade the police he had nothing to do with the deaths of Isabella and the woman found in the Trinity mansion, or Lachie, who appears to have committed suicide under suspicious circumstances, but also find the real killer if he has any hope of inheriting more than a crumbling house. Kelly peppers her tale with flashbacks of Stainsie’s youth with the fearsome Stoddart clan, but even his colorful memories aren’t enough to buoy the lackluster current-day story.