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The Bothy
Tom is grieving for his girlfriend. Her powerful family, convinced he is responsible for her death, place a bounty on his head. On the run, Tom seeks refuge in the Bothy, a dilapidated moorland pub run by ageing gangster Frank. Tom tries to keep the bounty a secret, but news travels fast, even in the middle of nowhere.
Trevor Mark Thomas's first novel is a tense, violent drama involving desperate characters with little to lose apart from their lives. Amid moments of black humour and rare tenderness, buried fears and rivalries rise to the surface, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia that builds to almost unbearable levels.
Trevor Mark Thomas's first novel is a tense, violent drama involving desperate characters with little to lose apart from their lives. Amid moments of black humour and rare tenderness, buried fears and rivalries rise to the surface, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia that builds to almost unbearable levels.
236 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 15, 2019
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 4, 2019
Described by yours truly on Twitter as akin to Magnus Mills on meth, The Bothy proved to be something quite special from the outset. Tapping into the rising reputation and visibility of working class writing in the UK of late, Thomas has, with a limited cast of characters, constructed a dark, and unsettling book, packed to the gills with atmosphere and an overhanging miasma of violence. As Tom is sucked deeper into the strange, isolated world of the Bothy, and its attendant visitors and employees, one can’t help but wonder if he would be better off facing the music back home. Thomas’ sharp, punchy dialogue and his use of description to beautifully convey the cold, dirty shabbiness of Tom’s warped place of sanctuary, is absolutely first class. Throughout the book you feel completely immersed in the chaotic beauty of this isolated landscape, the sheer grit and grind of life, and the less than moral code that defines the lives of these characters. As this is a such a sinister and extremely claustrophobic tale of not your everyday country folk, I can’t reveal more about the violent chain of events that come to pass, but if you’re stout of heart and strong of stomach, I would absolutely recommend this to you.
August 13, 2019
Ah! That elusive literary treat - the British noir!
This is a cracking read. A bit like Daniel Woodrell transported to the Yorkshire-Lancashire borders. Wicked, bloody fun.
This is a cracking read. A bit like Daniel Woodrell transported to the Yorkshire-Lancashire borders. Wicked, bloody fun.
September 18, 2019
After his girlfriend dies, and her gangster-family blame him for the death, Tom goes into hiding in a remote pub on the Yorkshire moors. Here he finds another group of gangsters, led by Frank, and as the pub is cut off by snow, the bodies begin to pile up in a classic scenario.
There is much about Thomas’s descriptions of the bleak landscape of the moors that are reminiscent of Benjamin Myers’s wonderful writing, but the distinctive aspect of this book is Thomas's attention to the dynamics of the group. Suitable for the stage, much of the action takes place inside the pub, but more difficult to portray would be the level of violence, which certainly keeps the reader gripped.
It follows the pattern of classic crime novels and yet the interaction between the characters gives the story a fresh feel. This happens right up to the climatic ending, which could be described as predictable, yet also is clever and satisfying; predictable with a twist even...
There is much about Thomas’s descriptions of the bleak landscape of the moors that are reminiscent of Benjamin Myers’s wonderful writing, but the distinctive aspect of this book is Thomas's attention to the dynamics of the group. Suitable for the stage, much of the action takes place inside the pub, but more difficult to portray would be the level of violence, which certainly keeps the reader gripped.
It follows the pattern of classic crime novels and yet the interaction between the characters gives the story a fresh feel. This happens right up to the climatic ending, which could be described as predictable, yet also is clever and satisfying; predictable with a twist even...
March 11, 2019
Brilliantly dark book. Great dialogue, proper northern humour. Gave me bad dreams!
May 22, 2019
In the 2007 book Freakonomics, the behavioural economists Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner revealed a number of surprising aspects about the world around us. One of those, was that many street level drug dealers actually make little money, that in some cases the cash they earn is less than the minimum wage. This interesting factoid kept coming back to me when reading this novel
Tom, the protagonist of this novel, is grieving. His girlfriend has died and her family, The Conways, a powerful crime family in the local area, have put a bounty on his head. His friend helps him go on the run and arranges for him to hide in The Bothy, a pub in the middle of nowhere and run by Frank, an aging criminal. Tom is not welcomed by his new co-workers, a handful of misfits and thugs. The only person he really becomes friends with is Cora, Frank’s much younger girlfriend, and something that fuels the others hostility towards him. Frank, however, welcomes Tom with open arms and doesn’t appear to mind his flowering friendship with Cora.
Tom is put to work at the Bothy and on its surrounding land. It’s a shabby place well past its prime. It becomes apparent that Frank himself was once a crime lord of sorts, running brothels and having his finger in other scams. To a certain extent he still does, a crime gang from Bradford occasionally turn up, but what they’re doing for Frank is never quite clear.
Throughout the novel it is apparent that Frank’s best times are far behind him and this is why it reminded me so much of that Freakonomics revelation. The parallels are far from perfect, Frank is no street dealer and it seems likely that at some point he was earning the big bucks: he seems to own The Bothy for a start and there are hints that he was heavily involved in running rackets once-upon-a-time. He has enemies, either from the old days or from whatever he’s mixed up in now, people he wants dead. But he’s clearly in poverty. The Bothy is derelict, no customers ever visit, and food is sparse; this is no lifestyle of five-star hotels he’s living. Equally, while it’s never spelt out, it seems likely that his crew ended up with him the same way as Tom: through accident and misfortune, rather than choice. Certainly, Frank is not paying them very much, if at all.
All this puts an original spin on the gangster crime novel and helps makes this book an original and compelling tale. While on some levels The Bothy is a story about gangsters, it’s not a gangster novel in the traditional sense. This is a much slower burn novel than many that feature gangsters, much more about the tension between the people living and working in The Bothy, their almost hand-to-mouth existence, the mounting suspicion and paranoia as things start to go wrong and both Frank’s enemies, and The Conways who have put a bounty on Tom’s head, start to encroach. The finale, when it comes, is suitably visceral and fitting to the tone of the novel as a whole.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Bothy and would recommend it highly. This is the author’s debut and a pleasure as a book reviewer is finding new talent. I look forward to reading what he writes next.
Tom, the protagonist of this novel, is grieving. His girlfriend has died and her family, The Conways, a powerful crime family in the local area, have put a bounty on his head. His friend helps him go on the run and arranges for him to hide in The Bothy, a pub in the middle of nowhere and run by Frank, an aging criminal. Tom is not welcomed by his new co-workers, a handful of misfits and thugs. The only person he really becomes friends with is Cora, Frank’s much younger girlfriend, and something that fuels the others hostility towards him. Frank, however, welcomes Tom with open arms and doesn’t appear to mind his flowering friendship with Cora.
Tom is put to work at the Bothy and on its surrounding land. It’s a shabby place well past its prime. It becomes apparent that Frank himself was once a crime lord of sorts, running brothels and having his finger in other scams. To a certain extent he still does, a crime gang from Bradford occasionally turn up, but what they’re doing for Frank is never quite clear.
Throughout the novel it is apparent that Frank’s best times are far behind him and this is why it reminded me so much of that Freakonomics revelation. The parallels are far from perfect, Frank is no street dealer and it seems likely that at some point he was earning the big bucks: he seems to own The Bothy for a start and there are hints that he was heavily involved in running rackets once-upon-a-time. He has enemies, either from the old days or from whatever he’s mixed up in now, people he wants dead. But he’s clearly in poverty. The Bothy is derelict, no customers ever visit, and food is sparse; this is no lifestyle of five-star hotels he’s living. Equally, while it’s never spelt out, it seems likely that his crew ended up with him the same way as Tom: through accident and misfortune, rather than choice. Certainly, Frank is not paying them very much, if at all.
All this puts an original spin on the gangster crime novel and helps makes this book an original and compelling tale. While on some levels The Bothy is a story about gangsters, it’s not a gangster novel in the traditional sense. This is a much slower burn novel than many that feature gangsters, much more about the tension between the people living and working in The Bothy, their almost hand-to-mouth existence, the mounting suspicion and paranoia as things start to go wrong and both Frank’s enemies, and The Conways who have put a bounty on Tom’s head, start to encroach. The finale, when it comes, is suitably visceral and fitting to the tone of the novel as a whole.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Bothy and would recommend it highly. This is the author’s debut and a pleasure as a book reviewer is finding new talent. I look forward to reading what he writes next.
January 7, 2025
I absolutely loved this book. It doesn't follow traditional lines of writing when it comes to crime novels. The main character, Tom, escaped to the Bothy after the death of his girlfriend, where her family suspect his involvement and sought to murder himTrevor Mark Thomas. The characters were raw and brutal, and I commend Trevor on his character development, especially when the basis of the characters is for them to not be likable or good people, yet I came to really like Frank (who is the head of the small criminal gang). I absolutely loved the plot twist around the death of Toms girlfriend, and for once in my life when reading a crime novel, it was one I genuinely did not expect to come.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2024
Damn. This is an absolutely brilliant noir; a real sense of purgatory and imminent danger from start to explosive end with the titular location evocatively described and a character in its own right. I loved every second of this book and am thrilled I also took a chance and picked up a copy of his next book, Dry Cleaning, too.
March 11, 2019
Atmospheric, the remoteness and hopelessness of the location is ever so slightly reminiscent of the inescapable and never ending moors of Withering Heights.
June 3, 2020
Just not my sort of book
It was too violent and too inconclusive at the end. I felt sorry for Tom but the storyline was too grim for me.
It was too violent and too inconclusive at the end. I felt sorry for Tom but the storyline was too grim for me.
June 30, 2021
Excellent book albeit gruesome.
February 24, 2023
Good entertaining and captivating read once you get used to the very descriptive style. Don’t read too close too bedtime if you get nightmares!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews