HE became a cult favourite as a psychotic hardman immortalised on film by Robert Carlyle. 

But Trainspotting’s Francis Begbie is set to return in a new novel by Irvine Welsh who will show a surprising, softer side to his character, who will be seen as a married father-of-two living the perfect life in California. 

Welsh, 57, decided to bring back Begbie after he wrote an exclusive short story about him for the Christmas edition of The Big Issue in 2013.

In Welsh’s new novel The Blade Artist, Begbie, now known as Jim Francis, has moved away from Edinburgh and works as a painter and a sculptor.

The book description for The Blade Artist, due out next year, reads: “Some say he’s a fake and a conman, while others see him as a genuine visionary.

“But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge.”