Despite the Buzzcocks-era title, Strachan's third novel is set firmly in the early 1990s, just before student grants were axed and the likelihood of two working-class lads attending an unnamed university remarkably like St Andrews started to recede into the distance. That said, the fit is not comfortable: gay but straitlaced Richard has the misfortune to fall under the spell of bad boy Luke, erotic manipulator of girls and boys alike, who supplements his stipend by supplying the rich kids with drugs. Strachan sustains strong undercurrents of menace and regret by cutting back and forth: we see Richard then and now, a reclusive designer of computer games holed up in the Highlands, unable to fully shake the stain of bad decisions while still in thrall to a prior, supposedly more exciting version of himself. The fug of student common rooms and bars is expertly conveyed, alongside the clean-washed emptiness of the coast. And although I've never been interested in playing war games, Strachan makes their creation sound fascinating.