The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in "blocs" with "family voting" to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is "sectarian" and we are in a crisis. Hmmmmmm.

Grifters have worked out that "I'm just a fearless truth-teller willing to propose the necessary but politically incorrect solution," is a magic formula whereby if you're offensive enough the conversation focuses on whether you should have said it, and misses how your ideas are dumb as hell.

Come and hear me and @brookmyre.bsky.social talk about Tombstoning TONIGHT at @portybooks.bsky.social. There will be banter and music and all sorts. www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/doug-... @orendabooks.bsky.social

I appreciate all of these detailed analysis of what’s wrong with the policy, but the crucial thing to keep in mind here is that Donald Trump sincerely, literally does not understand what a tariff is and when that is your starting point, nothing beyond it really matters.

Fancy a maritime-set culture-wars satire featuring Jack Parlabane all at sea? Get 25% off this week. www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...

“What do you want to do on your birthday Andrew?” “I dunno - surprise me.”

Oh, the grand old duke of york He ██████████████████ He ██████████████████ And he ██████████████████

Fancy a maritime-set culture-wars satire featuring Jack Parlabane all at sea? Get 25% off this week. www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...

There's 25% off pre-orders for Quite Ugly One Evening from today until February 20. www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...

There's 25% off pre-orders for Quite Ugly One Evening from today until February 20. www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...

You may laugh, but the Macbeths are a much better role model for a marriage than Romeo and Juliet. They discuss their problems (killing the king of Scotland), share their hobbies (killing the king of Scotland), and resolve their conflicts (by killing the king of Scotland).

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Absolutely in love 😍 with these Korean copies of The Space Between Us, published by Moonhak Soochup. So beautiful. @orendabooks.bsky.social @agentphil.bsky.social

Tangent: my Japanese tutor finds animal noises in English frustrating. Japanese has one verb for an animal making a noise. We have one per animal and often two, one of them onomatopoeia. Roosters broke her when I said the word for cock-a-doodle-doo is "to crow" despite that being a whole other bird.

Pour one out for every professional political pundit, writer, consultant whatever that has spent the last decade trying to pretend that the Trump phenomenon was about trade or opiates and not a big chunk of white america losing its mind over having a black president bsky.app/profile/kyle...

Heading to Greenock for the Beacon Arts Festival on Sunday February 22nd. I'll be chatting about The Cracked Mirror and looking ahead to Quite Ugly One Evening. www.beaconartscentre.co.uk/spektrix-roo...

www.instagram.com/reel/DUTTCgV... Gollum & Smeagol have started their own politics podcast.

My debut novel, TOMBSTONING, is getting a 20th anniversary reissue with a beautiful new cover and intro by @brookmyre.bsky.social. We'll be chatting at @portybooks.bsky.social on Wed 25th Feb, it will be raucous, I bet. www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/doug-... @orendabooks.bsky.social

I am honoured and deeply chuffed to be a Special Guest at the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival! Join me at the unmissable gathering of crime fans next July. For more info and to book your tickets visit harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime-writin... #TheakstonsCrime

The end of January is finally in sight. Downside is only four more days to get The Cracked Mirror for 99p on Kindle.

Roll on the summertime!

Labour are wrong to say Farage is just "stuffing his party with failed Tories". Many of them are disgraced Tories.

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

The Cracked Mirror is still a mere 99p for the month of January, meaning this deal only has another seventy-eight days to run. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CKYRHQ4B/

Starmer maybe rightly doesn’t take bait each time but he needs an outrider - a semi-licensed “off message” attack dog - to make Haw-Haw Farage pay for sucking up to the guy who denigrates British war dead.

"Meanwhile, Princess Anne went for a ride in Kirkbride, Queen Camilla went shopping in Wapping, Prince Edward dropped a clanger in Bangor, and the young ladies of Buckingham asked Prince Andrew if he'd mind staying at home. Now it's goodnight from me ... ... and it's goodnight from him."

To be serious, I wouldn’t mind so much about celebrities getting children’s book deals if it worked both ways, and more authors got mainstream TV coverage.

As @stephmerritt.bsky.social put it, “You don’t hear it in other media. Judy Murray’s agent is not saying to her, ‘Oh Judy, you’ve given birth to a famous tennis player, why don’t you have a show at the Royal Academy?’”

🤭

Pre-order a SIGNED copy of Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre @brookmyre.bsky.social A zeitgesty mystery marking the return of rogue journalist Jack Parlabane 30 years after his appearance in the awesome "Quite Ugly One Morning"! Out in March HERE www.biggreenbookshop.com/signed-copie...

Can't wait for this. It's going to be immense.

I've never watched Call The Midwife. Here's what I think it's about

#Review of Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre #bookreview by Lou #QuiteUglyOneEvening #JackParlabaneSeries @brookmyre.bsky.social #LittleBrownUK #Thriller #CrimeFiction bookmarksandstages.home.blog/2026/01/13/r...

Distract yourself from the long, cold grind of January by mangling your brain in the company of the two must mismatched detectives in crime fiction. The Cracked Mirror is a Kindle monthly deal. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CKYRHQ4B/

Distract yourself from the long, cold grind of January by mangling your brain in the company of the two must mismatched detectives in crime fiction. The Cracked Mirror is a Kindle monthly deal. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CKYRHQ4B/

Knives out: the upper middle class are squabbling vicious children who do not deserve their inheritance Glass onion: the new elite are the stupidest murderous cunts alive and deserve your scorn Wake up dead man: those preaching anger as salvation are leading you to death, hope and kindness matter

Legendary subterfuge that all b3ta members will remember

“All sci-fi is a family teatime treat” says 1970s BBC reeling from Star Wars, before scheduling a bleak eco-fable about an unstable man who murders his co-workers aboard a doomed space ship.

“Be sure to set me to ‘delicate,’ Alison. It’d be a shame to ruin that sweater, you know, in case it ever comes back in style.”

My Live Aid musical wot I wrote has just announced a national tour opening at Leicester Curve theatre in March 2027. You can still see it in the West End until February. www.whatsonstage.com/news/just-fo...

“People have every right to own property, but we must balance that with the demands of burglars to steal that property and sell it.” Fuck off. And tell your loser tech mates to fuck off while you’re at it. Cheers. Ta. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

We popped into Topping's Edinburgh to sign some more Ambrose Parry stock for Christmas. (Other half of writing partnership out of shot.)

I don't really post anymore, but I would like to carry on writing books at some point in the future. Hate to be annoying, but any chance you could retweet so old twitter followers can find me if they want to? Going to delete my twitter, or at least abandon it on lock and let it die a slow death.

So we've gone from "he never said anything Nazi" to "well he might have said something Nazi but not in a hurtful way" to "well okay he probably did say something Nazi in a hurtful way, but didn't we all?"

It's 106 miles to Fossanova, we have a full tank of gas, half a packet of communion wafers, it's dark and I'm wearing a cassock... HIT IT!

It’s very funny to me that countries are trying to pass laws banning teens from social media until they’re older and can “handle it” as if the last decade hasn’t been about watching rich middle aged men nuke their brains on Twitter and then run the USA via shitpost.

Good on Penn Jillette. Having to come to terms with your entire political identity and philosophy being wrong is not easy and most people could never do it.

It’s weird how the news sometimes isn’t news. “Farage the school racist” was in the public domain five years ago, but it just wasn’t getting any traction. (Tweets below from 2020) Sometimes a story just has to wait until its time has come…