February 6, 2017
Nate Colgan, a side player in Edgar-finalist Mackay’s Glasgow trilogy (The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, etc.), narrates this morally complex standalone. Nate is the muscle with brains for Peter Jamieson’s crime organization in Glasgow, a position that has become all the more necessary now that Jamieson and his right-hand man, John Young, are serving time. Dubbed a security consultant, Nate sees two threats to the Jamieson empire: first, infighting and the inevitable internal power grabs; second, the infiltration of a deadly gang from England, hell-bent on taking over. Led by Adrian Barrett, the new lads want Jamieson’s slice of the Glaswegian drug business, which isn’t insubstantial, and they’ll kill to get it. Nate isn’t against getting his hands dirty, but he stops short when he realizes that Zara Cope, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his nine-year-old daughter, is entangled with Barrett’s gang. Filled with bloody intrigue, Scottish slang, and enough twists and turns to keep even the most astute reader guessing, this is hard-boiled fiction at its finest. Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Company.
February 1, 2017
A Glasgow fixer gets roped into the machinations of an embattled crime empire in this hard-boiled tartan noir.When a crime syndicate's head is imprisoned, the hoods trying to maintain control hire Nate Colgan to provide muscle, especially in light of a murder that contains all the earmarks of a warning that the syndicate is about to find itself under attack. Nate and his apprentice, Ronnie, go about providing the security and beatings that his new position requires. Things aren't helped when a hired gun from London comes north to avenge the murder and to prove himself the new hard man in town, nor when the mother of Nate's child suddenly reappears. What follows are the expected brutalities, betrayals, and double crosses, all of it in the determinedly grim tone that offers none of the noir pleasures but is nonetheless almost always acclaimed as authentic. A thriller can have a cold son of a bitch at the center, the classic example being Michael Caine in the film Get Carter, but said SOB also needs charisma, and apart from brooding and beating people, Nate doesn't bring much to the party. From his nondescript house to his nondescript appearance, Nate talks a lot about the necessity for a tough guy to fly beneath the radar. He pretty much flies beneath the radar of the book in which he's the protagonist. Label this one Highland dinge.
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Starred review from February 1, 2017
Though this Glasgow is as dark and dirty as the city he chronicled in his "Glasgow Trilogy" (The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter; The Sudden Arrival of Violence; How a Gunman Says Goodbye), Mackay takes a slightly different route with this latest stand-alone, though one that shares DNA with The Night the Rich Men Burned. For the first time, readers experience Glaswegian criminal life in the first person, namely Nate Colgan; him some Mackay fans may remember in the previous books as a "security consultant" for Peter Jamieson's criminal organization. Except now Jamieson, and his right-hand man, John Young, are locked up, and Colgan, along with Jamieson's trusted lieutenants, must keep the organization going and fend off unwanted advances from new guys looking to make a name for themselves. There's trouble at home, too, when Zara Cope, the mother of Nate's child, reappears and brings with her a whirlwind of drama. On the other side of the law--though the beauty of Mackay's world is that nothing is ever so cut and dried--DI Michael Fisher is keen to bring down even more of the organization, although he's got a bit of a thing for a certain Ms. Cope. VERDICT Mackay continues to ascend the ranks of hard-boiled British crime fiction authors. His latest novel, although unrelentingly dark, is streaked with black humor and a fast-paced plot that never sacrifices the truly fleshed-out characters,
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