What do you think?
Robin Llywelyn Trilogy #1
The Last Llanelli Train
Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing
“It’s Bukowski’s Pulp gone West Country.”—Uncut
“Takes the classic elements of noir . . . and pushes the genre to its limits.”—Welsh Literature Abroad
Meet Robert Llewellyn, the most apathetic, hopeless private eye ever created. He’s one step away from the gutter when he gets one last case—and that case smells of money.
Mixing purest noir with some jet-black comedy, The Last Llanelli Train offers an unforgettable portrait of a man whose life is falling apart.
Robert Lewis is from the Black Mountains in Wales. He now lives in Swansea.
“It’s Bukowski’s Pulp gone West Country.”—Uncut
“Takes the classic elements of noir . . . and pushes the genre to its limits.”—Welsh Literature Abroad
Meet Robert Llewellyn, the most apathetic, hopeless private eye ever created. He’s one step away from the gutter when he gets one last case—and that case smells of money.
Mixing purest noir with some jet-black comedy, The Last Llanelli Train offers an unforgettable portrait of a man whose life is falling apart.
Robert Lewis is from the Black Mountains in Wales. He now lives in Swansea.
216 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2005
About the author
Robert Lewis
5 booksRobert Lewis is from the Black Mountains, in the Brecon Beacons. He has been a silver service waiter, painter, barman, secretary, bookkeeper, salesman, banker, shop assistant, web editor, yardcat, helpdesk staffer, storesman, high-voltage cabler, data-entry clerk, housing officer, mailboy, audit junior, welders assistant, betting shop counterman, and unemployed.
He is a graduate of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. THE LAST LLANELLI TRAIN, his first novel, was nominated for the 2006 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. His second and third novels, SWANSEA TERMINAL and BANK OF THE BLACK SHEEP, were published by Serpent’s Tail. Robert is also the author of DARK ACTORS, a non-fiction book about the life and times of Dr David Kelly, the government advisor on biological weapons, published by Simon & Schuster in July 2013.
‘Frankly, a betting slip written by Lewis would be worth reading.’ Sunday Express
‘Without doubt, a writer of immense promise.’ — New Welsh Review
He is a graduate of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. THE LAST LLANELLI TRAIN, his first novel, was nominated for the 2006 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. His second and third novels, SWANSEA TERMINAL and BANK OF THE BLACK SHEEP, were published by Serpent’s Tail. Robert is also the author of DARK ACTORS, a non-fiction book about the life and times of Dr David Kelly, the government advisor on biological weapons, published by Simon & Schuster in July 2013.
‘Frankly, a betting slip written by Lewis would be worth reading.’ Sunday Express
‘Without doubt, a writer of immense promise.’ — New Welsh Review
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 18, 2018
The highlight of this entertaining slice of Bristol noir is its anithero, Robert Llewellyn, an ageing, alcoholic private eye with an office over a mini-mart in an unfashionable part of the city.
Though compared to Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy this is very much its own sort of thing. Its a story of the 1980s with seedy smokey pubs, hungover mornings and no concerns about driving drunk.
There will be few protagonists as disgusting as Llewelyn in what really is a depressing and bitter tale, but as with the best noir, the flashes of black humour to make it more than likeable.
Though compared to Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy this is very much its own sort of thing. Its a story of the 1980s with seedy smokey pubs, hungover mornings and no concerns about driving drunk.
There will be few protagonists as disgusting as Llewelyn in what really is a depressing and bitter tale, but as with the best noir, the flashes of black humour to make it more than likeable.
July 25, 2011
This book was a real find! I picked up an uncorrected bound proof in an Oxfam shop, and had never heard of the author or the book, but the first page and a half made me laugh so decided to go with it.
The narrator is a middle aged alcoholic who lives in a dump, spends much of his time in pubs and bookies, and appears set on a course of self destruction. The plot, as far as I understood it, involves blackmail and shady dealings at the local police station. This novel could have been done 'straight', in which case it would have been dark and depressing from start to finish. Instead it has been done with a fantastically sardonic sense of humour which never lets up, despite the increasingly horrendous things that happen to the main character.
The voice is perfect too - even the comparisons he makes are in keeping with his own experience (a pub's olde worlde features are described as 'about as genuine as apologies from a bailiff'.) I lost my grip on the plot towards the end, though I understood enough to enjoy this book thoroughly, and to look forward to reading the sequel.
The narrator is a middle aged alcoholic who lives in a dump, spends much of his time in pubs and bookies, and appears set on a course of self destruction. The plot, as far as I understood it, involves blackmail and shady dealings at the local police station. This novel could have been done 'straight', in which case it would have been dark and depressing from start to finish. Instead it has been done with a fantastically sardonic sense of humour which never lets up, despite the increasingly horrendous things that happen to the main character.
The voice is perfect too - even the comparisons he makes are in keeping with his own experience (a pub's olde worlde features are described as 'about as genuine as apologies from a bailiff'.) I lost my grip on the plot towards the end, though I understood enough to enjoy this book thoroughly, and to look forward to reading the sequel.
August 12, 2012
I struggled with the first half of The Last Llanelli Train wanting desperately for things to happen beyond Llewellyn getting paralytically drunk, wandering from one pub to the next, sitting in caffs or the bookies and reflecting on his own foibles. In the second half of the book the story with respect to the entrapment starts to come into its own and other characters start to edge to the fore and I started to enjoy the read. Lewis captures the desperation of an alcoholic’s tenuous grip on the world and his fractured and cathartic life. If you want to enter the lifeworld of a small town PI who seems to hate life as much as he tries cling onto it then The Last Llanelli Train might be your cup of tea.
November 7, 2022
I believe this is my first exposure to Welsh noir. Down on his luck PI. As the jacket says, part time PI, "full-time job of drinking himself to death". Some surprising twists along the way. Surprised that an author at the age of 26 describes the dissipation so well. Book one of a trilogy, I've already ordered the remaining two.
Similar to Inspector Rebus, without the literary pretensions of its main character. Rebus is MUCH more functional than Robin Llewellyn.
Similar to Inspector Rebus, without the literary pretensions of its main character. Rebus is MUCH more functional than Robin Llewellyn.
August 28, 2010
I hated this book for most of the time I read it, but even by the middle of that reading, I knew it was because I was caught in what I think gets called a category error-- in essence, I wanted to read some sort of hardboiled detective story (if you wonder why, expand the size of the cover, or read some of the blurbs, invoking Chandler and the rest), but in spite of a rumpled detective and a group of appropriately booze and despair soaked sentences, this isn't really a genre book, unless maybe it's a deconstruction of the genre.... and decons don't really give genre-pleasure, if you know what I mean. Probably not.
Anyhow, in this book there is a mission the detective undertakes, to entrap a man into infidelity so his wife can divorce him, which seems promising, but our narrator, Robin, is like Nick Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas, really at rock bottom as a drinker, and that's as hard to read as it is to watch, and takes longer. The plot, such as it is, moves very slowly, with lots of barrooms along the way and lots of interestingly self-conscious tough guy writing. In the end, the "plot" such as it is doesn't really deliver-- of course there's a twist, but it's less interesting than the twist you might've seen coming. Maybe it's a self-conscious f.u. to those who wanted pleasure from plot, but I think its probably a more traditional failing, that Lewis just wasn't interested in that.
Instead, the book really does seem to be interested in the redemption of the narrator. It's not quite high modernist, but it does have some elements of books like Last Appt in Samarra and all them. The mystery here is the backdrop for the soul searching, which is a neat inversion of how these things usually go. And when I squinted and read the book like that, I enjoyed it more-- by the end, I was almost into it. But it still never got to be the book I wanted to curl up with, because I felt like there were one too many prickly, incompatible elements for that.
Anyhow, in this book there is a mission the detective undertakes, to entrap a man into infidelity so his wife can divorce him, which seems promising, but our narrator, Robin, is like Nick Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas, really at rock bottom as a drinker, and that's as hard to read as it is to watch, and takes longer. The plot, such as it is, moves very slowly, with lots of barrooms along the way and lots of interestingly self-conscious tough guy writing. In the end, the "plot" such as it is doesn't really deliver-- of course there's a twist, but it's less interesting than the twist you might've seen coming. Maybe it's a self-conscious f.u. to those who wanted pleasure from plot, but I think its probably a more traditional failing, that Lewis just wasn't interested in that.
Instead, the book really does seem to be interested in the redemption of the narrator. It's not quite high modernist, but it does have some elements of books like Last Appt in Samarra and all them. The mystery here is the backdrop for the soul searching, which is a neat inversion of how these things usually go. And when I squinted and read the book like that, I enjoyed it more-- by the end, I was almost into it. But it still never got to be the book I wanted to curl up with, because I felt like there were one too many prickly, incompatible elements for that.
May 22, 2009
somebody ripped this off, but what little i read is kickass. robert lewis is about as noir as you can get.
January 26, 2017
This was a great read. A deeply flawed main character fully aware he is in over his head lurching from one shambolic situation to the next. Written with real wit and black humour.
April 20, 2019
Ostensibly P.I. fiction this book reads more like an alcoholic's diary of his extended pub-crawl round Bristol. The mystery doesn't really come into focus until the final few pages and mostly serves as a backdrop for Llewelyn's drunken shenanigans. It's bleak, almost unremittingly bleak, but there is just enough wit and black humour to lighten things up which I appreciated. More tellingly for me the humour landed, which I don't often find to be the case. Written comedy is incredibly hard to pull off I'm finding.
The whole thing is well written and doesn't overstay its welcome. It's just not what I expected and that usually leads to a sense of disappointment. Not so here. The end result was worth reading through. So much so that I'm disappointed to find there's only the 3 fiction books by this author.
Highly recommended with the caveats that it is more crime noir than P.I. fiction and the book is written in first person from the POV of a horrible character. The humour helps but for some people Llewelyn may be insufferable.
The whole thing is well written and doesn't overstay its welcome. It's just not what I expected and that usually leads to a sense of disappointment. Not so here. The end result was worth reading through. So much so that I'm disappointed to find there's only the 3 fiction books by this author.
Highly recommended with the caveats that it is more crime noir than P.I. fiction and the book is written in first person from the POV of a horrible character. The humour helps but for some people Llewelyn may be insufferable.
February 27, 2013
I picked this up (and its two sequels) because it's set in Bristol. Good call: it's quite engaging and a remarkable portrait of an alcoholic teetering on the brink of oblivion. I'm all the more impressed because very little actually happens in it and yet it keeps drawing you back.
Bristol was recognisable, if a bit tweaked for dramatic purposes, though I'd hate to have to specify the year in which it takes place. But never you moind, moy luvvers, for a knowledge of Bristle ain't requoired, innit. You'll have yersel a gurt read regaardless, loike.
Bristol was recognisable, if a bit tweaked for dramatic purposes, though I'd hate to have to specify the year in which it takes place. But never you moind, moy luvvers, for a knowledge of Bristle ain't requoired, innit. You'll have yersel a gurt read regaardless, loike.
October 23, 2014
Bought a copy of this (thankfully 2nd hand!) as it featured in a list of 10 P.I. novels you must read, just hope I didn't buy any others that were on that list. The main character is insufferable, pathetic and contemptible. His only saving grace is that he has enough self-awareness to know this but not enough gumption to do anything about it. It's basically a book about a complete tosser wasting time, getting beaten up and accomplishing nothing. Or as the back of the book says "sustained study of the psyche of an aging, alcoholic misanthrope"...
August 26, 2013
Although billed as having dark comedy aspects, I found this book dark, depressing and rather tragic. With the amount of alcohol our hero imbibes during the book, I felt constantly drunk. The plot is very slow moving. Worth a read and I might tackle another one. Not quite what I expected given the description.
August 26, 2013
Although billed as having dark comedy aspects, I found this book dark, depressing and rather tragic. With the amount of alcohol our hero imbibes during the book, I felt constantly drunk. The plot is very slow moving. Worth a read and I might tackle another one. Not quite what I expected given the description.
March 10, 2009
At last - a British neo noir that works. And is beckettian and set in Bristol. Or maybe i am just empathising with aging loser protagonists.
September 2, 2011
an alcohlic private detective tells his story
September 6, 2015
The comedy is so dark that I took it at face value. It's possible I should give this a second reading.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews