Shelf life

THIS WEEK: The Trainspotting crew are back for their final outing… plus our other favourite books featuring recurring characters

Dead Men’s Trousers Irvine Welsh (£ 16.99, JONATHAN CAPE)

Welsh says this is the last time he’ll return to the characters that defined a generation in Trainspotting because he can’t face writing them as pensioners. Here, the former friends are in their fifties. Mark Renton is finally a success as a jet-setting manager of DJS, while Begbie has reinvented himself as a celebrity artist. Meanwhile, Sick Boy and Spud have entered the bleak world of organ-harvesting. The gang continue to bumble from crisis to crisis – and not all of them will be alive at the end of the book. So, who is wearing dead men’s trousers?