Alan Parks – Grab This Book

To Die in June – Alan Parks

A woman enters a Glasgow police station to report her son missing, but no record can be found of the boy. When Detective Harry McCoy, seconded from the cop shop across town, discovers the family is part of the cultish Church of Christ’s Suffering, he suspects there is more to Michael’s disappearance than meets the eye.

Meanwhile reports arrive of a string of poisonings of down-and-outs across the city. The dead are men who few barely notice, let alone care about – but, as McCoy is painfully aware, among this desperate community is his own father.

Even as McCoy searches for the missing boy, he must conceal from his colleagues the real reason for his presence – to investigate corruption in the station. Some folk pray for justice. Detective Harry McCoy hasn’t got time to wait

I received a review copy from the publishers and was invited to join the blog tour by Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours.

It is time for my annual trip back to 1970’s Glasgow to reunite with Harry McCoy, Wattie, Stevie Cooper (McCoy’s oldest friend and one of Glasgow’s biggest gangsters) and Jumbo – Cooper’s garden-loving dogsbody. There are other characters I can expect to pop up as I dip back into the world Alan Parks has created (albeit that world is Glasgow of yester-year) but I always know these familiar faces will command my full attention until I reach the last page of the book. I seldom know when a new book is due out but I am always looking out for the next book by Alan Parks and I’ve never been disappointed with the stories he spins.

To Die in June is the sixth McCoy thriller and events are set during the heat of the 1975 summer. It begins with a missing child. A young boy is not in the family home when his mother comes down the stairs in the morning. She rushes to the police station, hysterical and demanding help. McCoy initiates an immediate search of the area but when he visits the family home to speak with the woman’s husband he is told there is no missing child. The search is called off and McCoy’s standing with his new colleagues at Possil police station dips even further than he could have anticipated.

Possil is McCoy and Wattie’s new home. There are changes taking place – Glasgow Police is becoming Strathclyde Police and while the transitions for the force are phasing in McCoy and the increasingly capable Wattie have been relocated. Their relationship with their new colleauges is fractious but for McCoy there is an opportunity to align himself with the other officers stationed at Possil but to do so will mean turning a blind eye to some of their activities and even applying a strong arm, when necessary, to get the outcomes needed. There will be a share of any spoils if he does and with his chaotic personal life seeming to take a turn for the better – McCoy is now in an unexpected relationship with one of Scotland’s leading actors and even McCoy is realising he needs to smarten up a little to be seen with her. This burgeoning relationship leads to some wonderful cameos, particularly early in the story when McCoy finds himself at a swanky Scottish Awards dinner.

But To Die in June isn’t all about sipping wine at posh functions. Out on the streets of Glasgow it looks like someone is giving the rough sleepers a toxic concoction to drink. At least that’s what McCoy believes. His colleagues are quick to point out that it is not unusual for the less fortunate citizens to start drinking anything they can get their hands on and early deaths are not uncommon given the toxins they regularly pour down their throats. Regular readers will know McCoy’s own father is one of the homeless souls and McCoy’s sensitivity to the plight of the homeless is not somthing his colleagues are quite so quick to give time to. But McCoy is concerned when his father’s drinking friends are telling him some of their number are dying after drinking a particularly toxic mixture. Wattie trys to convince McCoy he is reading too much into a few random deaths but McCoy isn’t so quickly convinced and the time he spends looking for a link between these deaths is putting a strain on his relationship with Wattie who is trying to cover the official investigations which the pair should be concentrating on.

As we have come to expect from Alan Parks there are critical events bubbling away and their importance may not always be apparent to the reader. Until suddently that subtle bubbling explodes into a very big deal and McCoy has a huge problem on his hands. That’s when you realise how smoothly Parks has sneaked some really important clues into the story, the very best sleight of hand, and McCoy’s life is in turmoil again. Alan Parks just keeps getting better and better – every new book feels more assured and that’s from a point where he was already setting a very high bar.

Glasgow never felt more unpredictable and it’s the dirty, rough city of old. There’s rival gangs buslting for superiority, gangsters trying to establish “legitimate” business interests, a religious group to be investigated (forcing McCoy to quash his natural distrust of all things faith-related), unhelpful and unethical police officers working to their own agenda. McCoy walks a dangerous path between these factions and he remains one of the very best protagonists in crime fiction at this time.

To Die In June is a five star read. The Harry McCoy series should be required reading for anyone calling themself a fan of Crime Fiction.

To Die in June is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/to-die-in-june/alan-parks/9781805300786

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May 12

May God Forgive – Alan Parks

Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack on a hairdresser’s has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.

When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, the van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspaper: one down, two to go.

Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow’s most powerful people to do it…

My thanks to Canongate for my review copy and to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join the May God Forgive blog tour.

It’s hard to know where to start with May God Forgive as the Harry McCoy books by Alan Parks are among my most anticipated releases each year. I had been looking forward to reading this book almost from the moment I finished last year’s The April Dead. The good news is that the wait was absolutely worth it. May God Forgive swept me up and folded me back into McCoy’s Glasgow of 1974 – it’s dark, brutal, unflinching and lots of other adjectives which you want from a story in the Glasgow of old.

If you are not familiar with Harry McCoy then the most important advice I can offer at this stage is go and grab a copy of Bloody January and start reading. If you want to jump straight in with May God Forgive then you can do this too as key characters, relationships and important events are all smoothly introduced by the author which should ensure no new readers are disadvantaged. For returning readers you can easily slip back into McCoy’s life, share the pain of Wattie’s sleepless nights with a teething toddler and tense when Stevie Cooper is in the scene as you never quite know when he may kick off!

Events in May God Forgive take place just a few weeks before I was born so I can’t claim any prior knowledge of how Glasgow was at this time. What I can confirm is that Alan Parks makes the old city and its hard reputation feel incredibly vivid and realistic. It’s the time of gangsters controlling their turf, of backroom pornographers snapping racy pictures of hard-up housewives, of violent attacks, cheap booze and a growing market in dodgy pills. And Glasgow’s finest are not a slick operation that can keep the city a safe place for its residents.

As we join the story the city is in outrage and mouring. An arson attack on a commercial property in the city resulted in the deaths of several women and children. Killing kids is never tolerated so the police recieved a tip-off as to where the perpretrators could be found. Three teenage boys are being brought to the court for sentencing and the crowds are out braying for blood. They want the death penalty brought back, they want the culprits released into their “care” so justice can be swiftly delivered. It’s chaos and it’s McCoy’s first day back at work after a period of enforced absence. Our main man has been convalesing as a stomach ulcer kept him in crippling pain but that’s nothing compared to the problems which are about to land in his lap.

McCoy’s ulcer is possibly one of the few lighthearted elements to the story, his slugging of pepto bismal when juggling his smoking, drinking and fried breakfasts sees a man caught in the horns of dilemma. There are few laughs elsewhere. Gangsters are flexing and posturing. An old acquintance of Harry’s has met a nasty end but leaves more questions than anyone could have expected. Wattie has been tasked with identifying the body of a young girl who was found dead in a city graveyard and those arsonists are in more trouble than they could ever have anticipated. Who will protect the murderers when a whole city wants them dead?

I am faced with a problem. How can I keep finding new ways to describe the absolute reading pleasure I get from this series? Each book delights and delivers thrills, tension and tramatic drama. I give each book a five star review and I wonder how Alan Parks can match it the next time out. Only he doesn’t just match the quality of the previous titles – he improves on them. Each book seems better than the last – how is this possible if there isn’t some sort of witchcraft involved? Magical. That’s what I am going with this time…”magical”.

May God Forgive is published by Canongate and is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/may-god-forgive/alan-parks/9781838856748

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April 1

The April Dead – Alan Parks

NO ONE WILL FORGET . . .

In a grimy flat in Glasgow, a homemade bomb explodes, leaving few remains to identify its maker.

Detective Harry McCoy knows in his gut that there’ll be more to follow. The hunt for a missing sailor from the local US naval base leads him to the secretive group behind the bomb, and their disturbing, dominating leader.

On top of that, McCoy thinks he’s doing an old friend a favour when he passes on a warning, but instead he’s pulled into a vicious gang feud. And in the meantime, there’s word another bigger explosion is coming Glasgow’s way – so if the city is to survive, it’ll take everything McCoy’s got . . .

My thanks to Jamie at Canongate for a review copy of The April Dead and to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the oppourtunity to host this leg of the tour.

Harry McCoy is the new name to add to the list of Scotland’s Best Fictional Coppers. His city is Glasgow and The April Dead takes us to 1974 – a full decade before Taggart became known as “Scottish For Murder.”

This book opens with a bang – literally. A homemade bomb has blown up in a rundown house in a quiet part of town. It looks like the bomb-maker made one final mistake at the wrong moment. McCoy isn’t good with blood so being asked to investiate a death where the victim is spread around a room really isn’t the best way for him to begin his day.

Before too long McCoy will be spinning more than one plate and finding himself in another unwelcome position. As ever, one of the key elements which bring these predicaments is is oldest friend Stevie Cooper – recently released from Peterhead prison and back in town to re-establish himself as the big noise with a finger in every pie. McCoy’s friendship with Cooper, one of Glasgows biggest criminals, is always problematic but never more so when Cooper is arrested for murder by McCoy’s young apprentice Wattie.

It seems the clumsy bombmaker may not have been working alone as there are further incidents around the city and McCoy finds he is relying upon the skills of a colleague who transferred from Northern Ireland. His experience of dealing with the aftermath of IRA bombs across the Irish Sea has given him unwelcome knowledge of different bombs and the destruction they can cause. In the mid-1970s the IRA were starting to make their presence felt on the mainland UK and unfortunately for McCoy he appears to be drawing attention to himself and being noticed by the wrong type of people.

With regular sidekick Wattie spending some of his time dealing with his new paternal responsibilities we see McCoy using some of his personal time trying to help out a retired American naval captain. His son (also a sailor) has gone missing in Glasgow and Capitan Stewart has travelled to Scotland to try and trace him. He is reliant upon McCoy’s support and McCoy appears happy to spend time with Stewart and help him to find the missing boy. However, it seems Stewart junior may have fallen in with a bad crowd and McCoy is certain there are elements of his life which his father knows nothing about. Diplomacy isn’t really McCoy’s strength so digging into possible criminal activities while keeping Captain Stewart in the dark is just another challenge for McCoy.

As with the earlier Harry McCoy novels I find the author’s depictions of Glasgow, as she was, to be mesmerising. It’s a familiar city in unfamiliar coat. McCoy knows his home and he knows many of the undesirable characters who live within but he moves around and spins those plates and by shaking up the right people and knowing the questions to ask he begins to make progress. The bombings are a clear and present threat and there are too many young military types cropping up in the investigation for McCoy’s liking. Alan Parks keeps the reader hooked with multiple events and threads and you know that when the book reaches the endgame lots of those threads are going to be connected – but which ones?

I make no secret of the fact I adore the Harry McCoy series. I recommend them above many other crime books and each new release brings increasing levels of anticipation. The April Dead did not disappoint – if I did “starred” reviews it would be a nailed on Five Star recommendation. I know you have a TBR which is taking over your house but you need to be reading these books. So read them. No excuses.

The April Dead is published by Canongate Books and is available in Hardback, Digital and Audiobook fomat. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08H2BQR1T/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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December 31

My Favourite Books from 2020

Happy Hogmanay from a snowy Scotland. As the sun sets for the final time on 2020 I think we can all agree that this has not been one of the better years. Yet I look back on the previous 12 months with my bookish eyes and there were some great moments (mainly books I loved which offered escapism from our real-world dystopia).

Before everything stopped in March and we were no longer allowed out to play I had the joy of attending two events in Glasgow. A special mention and my thanks to the Orenda authors who made the trip to Glasgow for the Orenda Roadshow. Also to Elly Griffiths who hosted an afternoon tea and book reading in Waterstones in Sauchiehall Street. Little did I know at the time that this would be the only events I would attend all year – both days were great fun and I took the teenager along too where he initially got a bit starstruck but also started his own collection of signed crime thrillers…I am so proud!

But I digress. This post is my end of year wrap up. The ten books which brought me the most joy and esacapism during the year. Some were the right book at the right time. Some were great stories I could not put down and the others were titles I immediately put into the hands of someone else with a nod of “You MUST read this”.

10 – Curse The Day – Judith O’Reilly (Head of Zeus)

At a global tech gala hosted at the British Museum, scientist Tobias Hawke is due to unveil an astonishing breakthrough. His AI system appears to have reached consciousness, making Hawke the leading light in his field.

But when terrorists storm the building, they don’t just leave chaos in their wake. They seize Hawke’s masterwork, sparking a chain reaction of explosive events which could end the world as we know it.

Michael North, ex-assassin and spy-for-hire, must find the killers and recover the AI. But he can’t do it alone. Hawke’s wife, Esme, and teenage hacker, Fangfang, have their own reasons to help complete North’s mission – and together they unravel a dark and deadly conspiracy which stretches right to the top of the British elite.

Can North survive long enough to uncover the whole truth? Or is it already too late for humanity?

9 – Dark Highway – Lisa Gray (Thomas & Mercer)

An isolated highway in the middle of the desert—the perfect place to hide a secret.

LA-based artist Laurie Simmonds disappeared two months ago, her campervan abandoned on the isolated Twentynine Palms Highway, miles from anything—or anyone. With the police investigation stalled, her parents put all their faith in private investigator Jessica Shaw to find out the truth of what happened.

Jessica and her partner Matt Connor discover that two other women are missing, their disappearances connected to the same highway. When a link emerges between these women and a group of former college friends, Jessica feels certain they’re closing in on their target.

But no sooner do they follow this up than Laurie’s parents get spooked and drop the case. Jessica is blindsided but determined not to give up: three women are missing, and many more may be at risk. She can’t turn her back on them. But the more she pulls at the threads of the truth, the closer she comes to danger. Can she find out who’s behind these crimes before they come for her?

8 – Thirty-One Bones – Morgan Cry (Polygon)

When Daniella Coulstoun’s estranged mother Effie dies in Spain under suspicious circumstances, she feels it’s her duty to fly out for the funeral.

On arrival, Daniella is confronted by a dangerous group of expat misfits who claim that Effie stole huge sums of cash from them in a multi-million property scam. They want the money back and Daniella is on the hook for it.

When a suspicious Spanish detective begins to probe Effie’s death and a London gangster hears about the missing money, Daniella faces threats on every front. With no idea where the cash is and facing a seemingly impossible deadline, she quickly finds herself out of her depth and fighting for survival in a strange and terrifying world.

7 – One White Lie – Leah Konen (Penguin)

Imagine you’ve finally escaped the worst relationship of your life, running away with only a suitcase and a black eye – and you’re terrified what will happen if he finds you.

Imagine your new next-door neighbours are the friends you so desperately needed – fun, kind, empathetic, very much in love.

Imagine that they’re in trouble. That their livelihoods – even their lives – are at risk. They have a plan to keep all of you safe, but they just need you to tell one small lie.

One small lie, and all of these problems would disappear . . .

You’d do it. Wouldn’t you?

It’s only one small lie, until someone turns up dead.

6 – The Resident – David Jackson (Viper)

THERE’S A SERIAL KILLER ON THE RUN
AND HE’S HIDING IN YOUR HOUSE

Thomas Brogan is a serial killer. With a trail of bodies in his wake and the police hot on his heels, it seems like Thomas has nowhere left to hide. That is until he breaks into an abandoned house at the end of a terrace on a quiet street. And when he climbs up into the loft, he realises that he can drop down into all the other houses through the shared attic space.

That’s when the real fun begins. Because the one thing that Thomas enjoys even more than killing is playing games with his victims – the lonely old woman, the bickering couple, the tempting young newlyweds. And his new neighbours have more than enough dark secrets to make this game his best one yet…

Do you fear The Resident? Soon you’ll be dying to meet him.

5 – A Dark Matter – Doug Johnstone (Orenda Books)

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators

When patriarch Jim dies, it s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events.

Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined.

As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything

A compelling, tense and shocking thriller and a darkly funny and warm portrait of a family in turmoil, A Dark Matter introduces a cast of unforgettable characters, marking the start of an addictive new series.

4 – Stone Cold Trouble – Amer Anwar (Dialogue Books)

Trying – and failing – to keep his head down and to stay out of trouble, ex-con Zaq Khan agrees to help his best friend, Jags, recover a family heirloom, currently in the possession of a wealthy businessman. But when Zaq’s brother is viciously assaulted, Zaq is left wondering whether someone from his own past is out to get revenge.

Wanting answers and retribution, Zaq and Jags set out to track down those responsible. Meanwhile, their dealings with the businessman take a turn for the worse and Zaq and Jags find themselves suspected of murder.

It’ll take both brains and brawn to get themselves out of trouble and, no matter what happens, the results will likely be deadly. The only question is, whether it will prove deadly for them, or for someone else . . . ?

3 – How The Wired Weep – Ian Patrick (Independently Published)

The Wire crosses the pond.

Ed is a detective who handles informants. He recruits Ben, a young man, who is treading a dangerous path into the criminal underworld.
Ben’s unsure of where his loyalties lie. They have to find a way to work together despite their differences.

Both men are drawn into the world of Troy, a ruthless and brutal leader of an Organised Criminal Network.

Ben is torn between two worlds as he tries to walk the impossible line between criminality and helping Ed combat crime.
He lives in fear of discovery.

When your life is thrown upside down who do you turn to in order to survive?

Set against the backdrop of the 2012 Olympic Games, How the Wired Weep is a fast paced urban thriller where time is against both men as they attempt to serve their own agendas.

2 – Bobby March Will Live Forever – Alan Parks (Canongate)

WHO IS TO BLAME WHEN NO ONE IS INNOCENT?

The papers want blood.
The force wants results.
The law must be served, whatever the cost.

July 1973. The Glasgow drugs trade is booming and Bobby March, the city’s own rock-star hero, has just overdosed in a central hotel.

Alice Kelly is thirteen years old, lonely. And missing.

Meanwhile the niece of McCoy’s boss has fallen in with a bad crowd and when she goes AWOL, McCoy is asked – off the books – to find her.

McCoy has a hunch. But does he have enough time?

1 – King of the Crows – Russell Day (Fahrenheit Press)

2028, eight years after a pandemic swept across Europe, the virus has been defeated and normal life has resumed.

Memories of The Lockdown have already become clouded by myth, rumour and conspiracy. Books have been written, movies have been released and the names Robertson, Miller & Maccallan have slipped into legend. Together they hauled The Crows, a ragged group of virus survivors, across the ruins of London. Kept them alive, kept them safe, kept them moving.

But not all myths are true and not all heroes are heroes.

Questions are starting to be asked about what really happened during those days when society crumbled and the capital city became a killing ground.

Finally the truth will be revealed.

And there you have it – ten cracking books. Bring on 2021 I am ready for new stories.

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March 6

Bobby March Will Live Forever – Alan Parks

WHO IS TO BLAME WHEN NO ONE IS INNOCENT?

The papers want blood.
The force wants results.
The law must be served, whatever the cost.

July 1973. The Glasgow drugs trade is booming and Bobby March, the city’s own rock-star hero, has just overdosed in a central hotel.

Alice Kelly is thirteen years old, lonely. And missing.

Meanwhile the niece of McCoy’s boss has fallen in with a bad crowd and when she goes AWOL, McCoy is asked – off the books – to find her.

McCoy has a hunch. But does he have enough time?

My thanks to Canongate Books for my review copy

This is one of the backwards reviews – one of the ones where I do the summary first. That only happens when I have been blown away by a book. So there should be no doubt when I say: I loved Bobby March Will Live Forever.

The third book in the Harry McCoy series which began with Bloody January (five stars) and February’s Son (five stars). I enjoyed Bobby March more than the first two so have not left myself any room to reflect this in my scoring system…I may need to add a smiley face or a “vg” like I did when I was teaching.

Now I can turn to the book. It is Glasgow in the blistering heat of Summer 1973. A child (Alice Kelly) has vanished off the streets and her parents are frantic. The police are stretched to the limit and it is “all hands on deck” to find Alice. All hands except Harry McCoy.

Harry has been sidelined. He is working under a new boss, a temporary arrangement while the head of his station takes on a secondment up in Perth. Harry and his new “boss” do not see eye to eye and the consequence of their enmity is that Harry is getting all the rubbish to deal with. So while his colleagues (and the splendid “Watty”) are on a city-wide hunt for missing Alice, Harry is left to deal with a drug-overdose in a city centre hotel. The deceased is Bobby Marsh, through a series of flashback chapters scattered through the book we see Bobby rise from young talented guitarist to the best session musician of his day. He played with all the greats but dabbled with all the wrong substances and this would be his undoing. Bobby is gone, his fans will be bereft and Harry has to work out why an apparent overdose appears to be more complicated than it may seem.

Harry’s Perthshire-ensconsed boss, Murray, also has another task for him as his niece has run away from home an Murray’s brother wants her found and returned. But as Murray’s brother seeks political office he wants his runaway daughter kept out of the headlines. Murray puts this responsibility onto Harry and leaves him spinning plates.

The investigation process in 1973 is very different from the crime fiction titles we read today and Harry’s world seems a million miles away from what we have now. Yet Alan Parks makes it wonderfully vivid and you can almost smell the cigarette filled bars and sweaty tenement rooms that Harry has to frequent.

The returning cast add so much depth and enjoyment, Harry’s old friend Stevie Cooper is still one of Glasgows crime kingpin’s, the dependable Watty is working with ‘the enemy’ on the missing girl case, brothel madame Iris is back to provide unwilling assistance and even Harry’s ex girlfriend cameos to remind him of days long lost.

The story is utterly compelling and I was totally unprepared for how some elements were resolved. So damned clever!

We are three books in to this series and I cannot say enough good things about all the Harry McCoy titles. Alan Parks is the name all fans of crime fiction should be seeking out. These are books you should be reading.

Bobby March Will Live Forever. Five stars, v.g. 🙂

Bobby March Will Live Forever is available in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07XC7ZLBF/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

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December 10

My Favourite Audiobooks – 2018

End of another year. As this is my blog I have decided that it is time for me to share my thoughts on my favourite audiobooks. The following ten titles are the stories I enjoyed listening to the most over the last 12 months – they are not shown in any order of preference.

Very few rules on this. If I listened to the book in the last 12 months it counts. If I started to listen to a story and jumped to a physical book to finish it quicker (this happened a couple of times) then it doesn’t count but those books will almost certainly feature in my Best Books of 2018 list!

On a final note an audiobook doesn’t just qualify on how good the story was but on production and narration too.

Hydra – Matt Weslowski

A family massacre. A deluded murderess. Five witnesses. Six stories. Which one is true?

One cold November night in 2014, in a small town in the north west of England, 21-year-old Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and younger sister to death with a hammer, in an unprovoked attack known as the Macleod Massacre. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation.
King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself, as he questions whether Arla’s responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out.
As he unpicks the stories, he finds himself thrust into a world of deadly forbidden ‘games’, online trolls, and the mysterious black-eyed kids, whose presence seems to extend far beyond the delusions of a murderess…

The Puppet Show – M.W. Craven

Welcome to the Puppet Show . . .

A serial killer is burning people alive in the Lake District’s prehistoric stone circles. He leaves no clues and the police are helpless.

When his name is found carved into the charred remains of the third victim, disgraced detective Washington Poe is brought back from suspension and into an investigation he wants no part of.

Reluctantly partnered with the brilliant, but socially awkward, civilian analyst, Tilly Bradshaw, the mismatched pair uncover a trail that only he is meant to see. The elusive killer has a plan and for some reason Poe is part of it.

As the body count rises, Poe discovers he has far more invested in the case than he could have possibly imagined. And in a shocking finale that will shatter everything he’s ever believed about himself, Poe will learn that there are things far worse than being burned alive …

Come and Find Me – Sarah Hilary

On the surface, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull have nothing in common, other than their infatuation with Michael Vokey. Each is writing to a sadistic inmate, sharing her secrets, whispering her worst fears, craving his attention.

DI Marnie Rome understands obsession. She’s finding it hard to give up her own addiction to a dangerous man: her foster brother, Stephen Keele. She wasn’t able to save her parents from Stephen. She lives with that guilt every day.

As the hunt for Vokey gathers pace, Marnie fears one of the women may have found him – and is about to pay the ultimate price.

The Old You – Louise Voss

Lynn Naismith gave up the job she loved when she married Ed, the love of her life, but it was worth it for the happy years they enjoyed together. Now, ten years on, Ed has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and things start to happen; things more sinister than missing keys and lost words. As some memories are forgotten, others, long buried, begin to surface … and Lynn’s perfect world begins to crumble.But is it Ed’s mind playing tricks, or hers…?

Slow Horses – Mick Herron

You don’t stop being a spook just because you’re no longer in the game.

Banished to Slough House from the ranks of achievers at Regent’s Park for various crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal, Jackson Lamb’s misfit crew of highly trained joes don’t run ops, they push paper.

But not one of them joined the Intelligence Service to be a ‘slow horse’.

A boy is kidnapped and held hostage. His beheading is scheduled for live broadcast on the net.

And whatever the instructions of the Service, the slow horses aren’t going to just sit quiet and watch . . .

I Am Death – Chris Carter

Seven days after being abducted, the body of a twenty-year-old woman is found on a green patch of grass by the Los Angeles International Airport. She has been left with her limbs stretched out and spread apart, placing her in a five-point human star.

The autopsy reveals that she had been murdered in a most terrible way. But the surprises don’t end there.

Detective Robert Hunter, who leads LAPD’s Special Section, Ultra Violent Unit, is assigned the case. But almost immediately a second body turns up. Hunter knows he has to be quick.

Surrounded by new challenges as every day passes, Detective Hunter finds himself chasing a monster. A predator whose past hides a terrible secret, whose desire to hurt people and thirst for murder can never be quenched – for he is DEATH.

Rain Dogs – Adrian McKinty

It’s just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy. Riot duty. Heartbreak. Cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked room mysteries in one career?
When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus castle, it looks like a suicide. But there are just a few things that bother Duffy enough to keep the case file open. Which is how he finds out that she was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond.
And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?

Bloody January – Alan Parks

When a teenage boy shoots a young woman dead in the middle of a busy Glasgow street and then commits suicide, Detective Harry McCoy is sure of one thing. It wasn’t a random act of violence.

With his new partner in tow, McCoy uses his underworld network to lead the investigation but soon runs up against a secret society led by Glasgow’s wealthiest family, the Dunlops.

McCoy’s boss doesn’t want him to investigate. The Dunlops seem untouchable. But McCoy has other ideas . . .

Scared To Death – Rachel Amphlett

When the body of a snatched schoolgirl is found in an abandoned biosciences building, the case is first treated as a kidnapping gone wrong.

But Detective Kay Hunter isn’t convinced, especially when a man is found dead with the ransom money still in his possession.

When a second schoolgirl is taken, Kay’s worst fears are realised.

With her career in jeopardy and desperate to conceal a disturbing secret, Kay’s hunt for the killer becomes a race against time before he claims another life.

For the killer, the game has only just begun…

The Dali Deception – Adam Maxwell

Violet Winters—a professional thief born of a good, honest thief-and-con-artist stock— has been offered the heist of a lifetime. Steal a priceless Salvador Dali from the security-obsessed chairman of the Kilchester Bank and replace it with a forgery.

The fact that the “painting” is a signed, blank canvas doesn’t matter. It’s the challenge that gives Violet that familiar, addicting rush of adrenaline. Her quarry rests in a converted underground Cold War bunker. One way in, one way out. No margin for error.

But the reason Violet fled Kilchester is waiting right where she left him—an ex-lover with a murderous method for dumping a girlfriend. If her heist is to be a success, there will have to be a reckoning, or everything could go spinning out of control.

Her team of talented misfits assembled, Violet sets out to re-stake her claim on her reputation, exorcise some demons, and claim the prize. That is, if her masterpiece of a plan isn’t derailed by a pissed-off crime boss—or betrayal from within her own ranks.

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July 18

Bloody January – Alan Parks (Audiobook)

When a teenage boy shoots a young woman dead in the middle of a busy Glasgow street and then commits suicide, Detective Harry McCoy is sure of one thing. It wasn’t a random act of violence.

With his new partner in tow, McCoy uses his underworld network to lead the investigation but soon runs up against a secret society led by Glasgow’s wealthiest family, the Dunlops.

McCoy’s boss doesn’t want him to investigate. The Dunlops seem untouchable. But McCoy has other ideas . . .

In a helter-skelter tale – winding from moneyed elite to hipster music groupies to the brutal gangs of the urban wasteland – Bloody January brings to life the dark underbelly of 1970s Glasgow and introduces a dark and electrifying new voice in Scottish noir.

My thanks to Canongate Books for my review copy which I received through Netgalley – I also bought an audible copy which I listened to through Audible.co.uk

Last September I attended the Bloody Scotland festival and one of my pals suggested I read Bloody January as it seemed like “my kind of story”. Ten months later I finally started reading and I am really regretting that ten month wait. Bloody January is very much “my kind of story” I utterly loved it. So much so that I cheated on the audiobook version with a digital copy so that I could “read” it quicker – it’s that good!

Alan Parks takes us back to Glasgow in the cold, damp January of 1973. The lead character is Detective Harry McCoy, he enjoys the company of a working girl, drinks heavily, takes drugs, smokes (everyone smokes) and his best friend is head of one Glasgow’s criminal gangs. I rather liked McCoy, we find he has come through some tough times and is not coping well.

McCoy is summoned to Barlinnie (Glasgow’s famous prison) to speak with a man he helped convict. He is given advance warning of a murder…can he stop a life being taken? Despite his reservations over the accuracy of this information McCoy tries to track down the girl but he arrives too late to prevent her very pubic death. The murderer then takes his own life but the question of WHY needs addressed and McCoy, with his young trainee “Wattie” in tow, are tasked with finding answers.

Much of the appeal in reading came from the interaction between the characters. McCoy and Wattie were especially fun to accompany on their investigations. Wattie has been moved from rural Ayrshire to learn how policing in “the big city” works – watching him find his feet is a blast.

Bloody January is a police procedural where none of the conventional procedures seem to be followed. It is a rough time, political correctness is totally unheard of and sexual equality is a tricky area for McCoy (as we get to see). Alan Parks has done a cracking job of making the old town come back to life around his readers. The story, the setting, the corruption and poverty all makes for brilliant reading and I loved reading about “old” Glasgow.

As I indicated at the outset I listened to the majority of the book on audiobook. Narration duties are in the very capable hands of Andrew McIntosh. I maintain that the narrator can make or break the audiobook experience – if the story sounds wrong then it will stop me enjoying the book. The good news is that McIntosh is perfect. Glasgow sounds suitably gritty and the characters come to life under his care.

I loved this step back in time. Bloody January is, without doubt, one of the books which I have enjoyed most in recent months. I can only hope that the characters which survive the tale (no spoilers) will return for another outing.

Bloody January is published by Canongate Books and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bloody-January-Harry-McCoy-novel-ebook/dp/B072M55NHT/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Category: 5* Reviews, Audiobook, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off