His face made a fist at the world. The twined remnant of umbilicus projected vulnerably. Hands, feet and prick. He had come equipped for the job. Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies bet
This third book in the series begins with Jack Laidlaw’s despair and anger at his brother’s death in a banal road accident. His questions as to the dynamics of his bother’s death lead to larger questi
In Laidlaw, the first book of the series, we are introduced to Jack Laidlaw, a hard-drinking philosopher-detective whose tough exterior only partly hides a rich humanity and keen intelligence. Laidlaw
Eddie Cameron is a salesman for Rocklight Ltd., an electrical equipment firm in Glasgow, where he has been fiddling the firm's expenses. Eddie's life is in tatters - his wife hates him, and his violen
McIlvanney once again sets out on the dark side of Glasgow with Detective Jack Laidlaw. "The wine he gave me winsy wine" were the final words of Eck Adamson to Laidlaw, his only friend. Laidlaw is co
An extraordinary debut by a Scottish mystery writer, this cult classic of crime fiction presents Detective Jack Laidlaw, a policeman as complex and self-critical as you'll ever meet. Laidlaw follows
Tom Docherty was seventeen in the summer of 1955. With school behind him and a summer job at a brick works, Tom had his whole life before him. Years later, alone in a rented flat in Edinburgh and lost
In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a residential weekend. The weekend proves to be a major turning point in
The big man is Dan Scoular, a legend of physical prowess in a decaying Ayrshire mining community. When a bare-knuckle fight offers both money and a purpose, he finds it turns into a monumental struggl
McIlvanney's first novel, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial PrizeCharlie Grant, an intense young student at Glasgow University, watches his father die. Overwhelmed by the memory of this humble yet
Eck Adamson, an alcoholic vagrant, summons Jack Laidlaw to his deathbed. Probably the only policeman in Glasgow who would bother to respond, Laidlaw see in Eck's cryptic last message a clue to the mur
