Louise Welsh

The other night, I attended an reading / booksigning for Louise Welsh, the author of the recently released contemporary noir, The Bullet Trick. Its a terriffic new novel set in contemporary Berlin, London and Glasgow. (The author is Scottish, and she read here in San Francisco at a pub called the Edinburgh Castle.) During her talk, she mentioned that the Berlin section of the book was a riff off of the Frank Wedekind plays, namely Lulu. Welsh also mentioned Louise Brooks, and her admiration of the actress. I spoke with her afterwords, and gave her a Louise Brooks button. Welsh is very cool - and her two earlier books, The Cutting Room and Tamberlaine is Dead - are well worth checking out.