Irvine Welsh's sequel to Trainspotting and Porno.
- Afterlife Express: Begbie has another fantasy similar to his DMT hallucinations where he has dinner with his dead enemies. He said the dining room felt like a bus terminal or a railway station where they'd move on and go somewhere else when they finished their meals.
- Ass Shove: The police come to talk to Sick Boy when Marianne is riding him in the ass with a strap-on dildo while a sex worker does the same to her. Doubles as a Callback to Skagboys, where Alison does the same to Sick Boy and he discovers he likes it.
- Batter Up!: Renton beats the cop that's stalking Melanie and about to shoot Begbie near to death with a baseball bat that Begbie got from an old client.
- Camp Gay: Sick Boy is disappointed that his son isn't one of these and tries to outdo one he meets on a plane at being over the top.
- Camp Straight: Sick Boy mentions being straight but camp as a row of tents.
- Chained to a Railway: One of Begbie's paintings Blood on the Tracks depicts a man who he subconsciously made to look like Renton tied to train tracks.
- Chekhov's Skill: Renton's martial arts training from the previous book, which he learned to defend himself from Begbie, ironically gets used to save Begbie's life towards the end of the book.
- Cliffhanger Copout: We're told that Begbie waking up from his coma and grabbing Simon's hand as Simon was drawing a penis on his face at the end of Porno was just an involuntary spasm. Simon wonders if Begbie is planning some long-term revenge but nothing comes of it.
- Contrived Coincidence: Sick Boy complains about the odds about he and Mark being in Berlin at the same time when he was so hard to get hold of when he owed Sick Boy money.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Begbie performs it on Spud pretty easily when he starts suffocating while Frank's making a plaster cast of his head.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Blade Artist mentioned that an actor called Chuck Ponce visited Begbie in prison while researching a role and promised they'd stay friends when Begbie got out but then ignored all Frank's attempts to contact him. Here he contacts Begbie about commissioning some art and gets pushed off a cliff for his trouble.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Sick Boy unsuccessfully argues that a woman can't be a nonce when trying to set a sex worker up with his underage nephew.
- Embarrassing Last Name: There's an actor called Chuck Ponce who didn't realize what his stage name meant in the UK.
- Eye Scream;
- One of the pictures at Begbie's art exhibition is a painting of Jimmy Savile with his eyes gouged out.
- Begbie gouges out Some's eyes and stuffs his kidneys in the sockets.
- Groin Attack;
- When Begbie's making two drunk men fight eachother, he kicks one of them in the balls.
- Begbie castrates Symes with a sword.
- Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Renton feels DMT does this to him.
- Identical Grandson: Renton is shocked at how Spud's son Andrew looks like a younger version of his father.
- I Have Your Wife: Symes keeps Spud's dog, Toto until he goes through with the second kidney delivery.
- Immediate Sequel: Begins with the ending of the Begbie spin-off The Blade Artist.
- Job-Stealing Robot: When Andrew talks about Spud getting laid off, he says in five or ten years his job as a lawyer will be made redundant by artificial intelligence.
- "Last Supper" Steal: Begbie's DMT hallucination is himself at a The Last Supper-style dinner with several people who are now dead. He claims the image of the last supper was always caused by DMT hallucination ls and predates Jesus.
- Late Coming Out: Sick Boy's son Ben comes out to him.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Spud ends up on the receiving end of this to remove his kidney to replace the one he lost. It's performed by a foot doctor, a gangster, and a crew of fuckups using a YouTube tutorial. Complications from the surgery contribute to Spud's death.
- Medium-Shift Gag: When anybody trips on DMT, the text changes to a comic-strip for a page.
- Never Suicide: Begbie drugs Harry and hangs him from the ceiling hoping to make it look like a suicide, but the roof collapses.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Euan is a foot doctor but that doesn't stop Symes blackmailing him into removing kidneys.
- Off the Wagon: In contrast to his recovery and finding religion in Porno, Second Prize appears in a single scene and looks so worn from drink that he appears almost dead.
- Organ Theft: Spud gets a kidney removed to make up for the one he was supposed to deliver but was eaten by his dog.
- Pedo Hunt: One of Begbie's portraits shows Jimmy Savile beaten to a pulp with "THIS IS HOW WE DEAL WITH NONCES IN LEATH" written under it.
- P.O.V. Sequel: Starts with the ending of The Blade Artist from Renton's point of view.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Spud has a dog called Toto which he named after the band and didn't realize there was a dog called Toto in The Wizard of Oz.
- Series Continuity Error: Mark loses the last of his money to Second Prize who demands to be paid back the money Mark stole in Trainspotting, even though Mark already paid him back in Porno. Second Prize throw the money away because he'd found religion but Mark no longer owes him.
- Sleeps with Everyone but You: Mikey Forrester's hatred of Renton is explains that a woman was stringing Mikey along for months to get free drugs then casually slept with Mark.
- Sticky Situation: One of the DJs Renton represents falls asleep before a gig and another glues a dildo to his forehead. He has to go on like that and pretends it's part of his act, then gets it removed at a hospital.
- Straight Gay: Sick Boy is disappointed in his son for being one because he doesn't see the point in being gay if you aren't outrageous.
- Take a Third Option: When Begbie refuses to take the money Mark owes him, Sick Boy suggests Mark use it to bid on some of Begbie's artwork. Sick Boy then persuades Mikey Forrester to bid against Mark to jack up the price. Then Begbie decides he want a now cleaned out Renton to pay back the drug deal money as well as buying the art.
- Taught by Television: Symes has to learn how to remove Spud's kidney by watching a YouTube video from a laptop sitting on his chest. Nearly kills him when the battery starts to go.
- Title Drop: Mark notes that people are nothing but a work in progress until we die and fall into the world of dead men's trousers.
- Tonight, Someone Dies: An advertising point was that one of the main four characters wouldn't survive the book. It's Spud Murphy incase you're wondering.
- Use Your Head: Renton headbutts Sick Boy and breaks his nose after he scams him at the auction.
