The book
An exciting, evocative first-in-series noir novel set in 1973 Glasgow, a city on the cusp of a heroin epidemic, featuring detective Harry McCoy.
When an 18-year-old boy shoots a young woman dead in the middle of a busy Glasgow street and then commits suicide, McCoy knows it can’t be a random act of violence. With a newbie partner in tow, McCoy uses his underworld network to build a picture of a secret society run by Glasgow’s wealthiest family, the Dunlops. Drugs, sex, incest; every nefarious predilection is catered to, at the expense of the lower echelon of society, an underclass that includes McCoy’s best friend from reformatory school – drug-Tsar Stevie Cooper – and his on-off girlfriend, a prostitute, Janey. But with McCoy’s boss calling off the hounds, and his boss’ boss unleashing their own, the Dunlops are apparently untouchable. McCoy has other ideas.
Fans of McIlvanney’s Laidlaw books and Oliver Harris’ The Hollow Man, Ian Rankin’s and Dennis Lehane’s fiction, and TV shows like Idris Elba’s Luther will find themselves thoroughly satisfied here.
The author
Alan Parks
Before beginning his writing career, Alan Parks was Creative Director at London Records and Warner Music, where he marketed and managed artists including All Saints, New Order, The Streets, Gnarls Barkley, and Cee Lo Green. His love of music, musician lore, and even the industry, comes through in his prize-winning mysteries, which are saturated with the atmosphere of the 1970s music scene, grubby and drug-addled as it often was. Parks’ debut novel, Bloody January, propelled him onto the international literary crime fiction circuit and won him praise, prizes, and success with readers. The second book in the Harry McCoy series, February’s Son, was a finalist for a MWA Edgar Award. Parks was born in Scotland, earned an M.A. in Moral Philosophy from the University of Glasgow, and still lives and works in the city he so vividly depicts in his Harry McCoy thrillers.
Press
- May 30 2018
Small Victories
— Los Angeles Review of Books - May 7 2018
9 Debut Novels to Discover this Spring
— CrimeReads - May 4 2018
Mysteries: Glaswegian Goons
— Wall Street Journal - May 2 2018
The City and the Writer: In Glasgow with Alan Parks
— Words Without Borders - Apr 23 2018
“Harry McCoy is an immediately compelling new character.”
— Mystery Scene - Apr 17 2018
Scottish Noir At Its Best
— Mystery Tribune