Laidlaw (Laidlaw Trilogy)

Product Information

The three Laidlaw novels (published in 1977, 1983 and 1991) have been called the first crime novels in the tartan noir genre.He is regarded as "the father of Tartan Noir" and as Scotland's Camus. [4] The Laidlaw books are not just great crime novels, they are important ones. McIlvanney proved that crime writing could have both perfect style and huge ambition. Most of us writing crime fiction today are standing on the shoulders of giants. McIlvanney is one such giant." - Mark Billingham

William McIlvanney was a Scottish writer of novels, short stories, and poetry. He was a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s. He is regarded as "the father of 'Tartan Noir’" and has been described as "Scotland's Camus". McIlvanney shifts our viewpoint from chapter to chapter, sometimes telling it from the viewpoint of the young copper who's been assigned to assist Laidlaw and sometimes from the viewpoint of minor characters, like a wannabe gangster who winds up in waaaaay over his head and pays dearly for that mistake. The psychological insights that McIlvanney brings to these POV shifts tend to be astonishing, particularly one chapter that takes the viewpoint of a brutal, yet oddly principled gangster whom Laidlaw treats as an equal if not a friend (shades of Rankin's own character Morris "Big Ger" Cafferty). Another one, which takes the POV of a character who's openly homosexual, seems way ahead of its time. The only negative is that readers will need to know something about the late 70’s or some references will be meaningless. For example, with no disrespect to David Essex but you won’t find girls bedroom walls decorated with his face in 2020! Maybe there is an extra frisson in reading mysteries set in places you've been to, that are familiar on more than tourist terms - perhaps that's why I haven't loved some of the Scandis as much as expected. This is a book that feels so much of its city, the cast of toughs and of working-class characters who are far sharper and more intellectual than southerners would ever have assumed on hearing the accent; the spartanness that seems in the very flesh of the place even whilst it's debauching; and the sectarianism (something I heard about more than saw) which makes its first cunning appearance through simile: still following the relentless parade of his own thoughts, like an Orange March nobody dare cut across.Un cadavere viene trovato per caso sotto un cespuglio di un parco cittadino. A scoprirlo bambini che stanno giocando.

Mr. Rankin is most well known for his Inspector Rebus novels usually set in Edinburgh. His Rebus stories are notable contributions to the tartan noir genre.

Though I'm a noir fan, I otherwise tend to dislike mysteries and detective fiction, and the only thing I know about Glasgow is what I saw walking from one of the city’s train stations to another several decades ago. A love of this genre and knowledge of the city might have added that fifth star to my rating, because McIlvanney’s writing is splendid.

Perhaps the weakest character in the book is Laidlaw himself, who hides books by Camus and other philosophers in his desk drawer, cheats on his wife and then discusses his guilt with his mistress, who calls him "John Knox." Still, he's got an interesting viewpoint on both his city and on crime itself, and that kept me going. At one point, he observes, ‘Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice?’ and then supplies the answer, ‘It’s what we have because we can’t have justice.’

Glasgow has always had the reputation of being a hard man’s city, where if you say the wrong thing you could end up with a Glasgow kiss. In the mid-1970s Glasgow was in decline, the tenement slums were at their worst, the shipyards were closing the pubs were rough and the hard men were simply nuts. Stunning. Possibly the best-written crime novel I've read. It continually astounded me with its depth and surprising metaphors. There are noir tropes here, their meaning and resonance vastly amplified; I said similar about Ian Rankin a few months ago when I first read him, but this was like Rankin tripled, quadrupled - this, published in 1977, was one of the inspirations for Rebus. The story is also told from a variety of perspectives. It’s not a detective novel in the sense of classic detective stories where the focus is always on the detective. There are other players who the reader sees, and this is partially why most of the suspense is killed in the book, but it also gives a variety of viewpoints that make this different from the standard mold.