The Wasp Factory is the first novel by Scottish author, Iain Banks, and has been listed as one of the top 100 novels of the century by The Independent. Seventeen year old Frank L. Cauldhame is the second child of Angus Cauldhame, a somewhat reclusive doctor living on a firth island by the Scottish coast. Frank, by his own admission, has murdered three people and his brother Eric is in a mental hospital for setting fire to dogs and terrorising young children. As Frank narrates, almost emotionlessly, the events that occur after Eric escapes, it becomes quickly apparent that this resourceful youth is seriously disturbed. This novel has been described as brilliant and compelling, but also as rubbish. Banks has a brilliant imagination and knows how to make the reader gasp and squirm. All rather bizarre.