The Crow Road

Prentice, preoccupied with thoughts of sex, death, booze, drugs, and God, has returned to his home village of Gallanach full of questions about the McHoan past, present, and future.
When his beloved Uncle Rory disappears, Prentice becomes obsessed with the papers Rory left behind , the notes and sketches for a book called The Crow Road. With the help of an old friend, Prentice sets out to solve the mystery of his uncle's disappearance, inadvertently confronting the McHoans' long association with tragedy , an association that includes his sister's fatal car crash and his father's dramatic death by lightning.
The Crow Road is a coming-of-age story as only Iain Banks could write , an arresting combination of dark humor, menace, and thought-provoking meditations on the nature of love, mortality, and identity.