Irvine Welsh’s first short-story collection since his debut work The Acid House presents five extraordinary stories, which remind us that he is a master of the short form, a brilliant storyteller, and-unarguably-one of today’s funniest and most subversive writers. In Rattlesnakes three young Americans, lost in the desert, are accosted by two armed Mexicans. A Korean chef and a Chicago socialite find themselves connected through the disappearance of a pooch named Toto in The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park. And in the title story, Mickey Baker-an ex-pat English bar owner living on the Costa Brava-tries to keep all of his balls in the air: maintaining his barmaid’s weight at the sexual maximum, attending to the youthful Persephone, and dodging his ex-wife and Spanish gangsters.

In typically Welshian fashion, the characters and settings are anything but typical. These stories will make you laugh and gasp.