William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney

Photo Credit: Ian Atkinson

William McIlvanney is the author of the award-winning Laidlaw trilogy, featuring Glasgow’s original maverick detective. Both Laidlaw and The Papers of Tony Veitch gained Silver Daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association, while the third in the series, Strange Loyalties, won the Glasgow Herald’s People’s Prize. He died in December 2015.

Strange Loyalties is the third book in the Laidlaw Trilogy.



He’s not a copper who happens to be a man. He’s a man who happens to be a copper, and he carries that weight with him everywhere he goes.

The Dark Remains

Ian Rankin & William McIlvanney

I don’t like questions. They invent the answers. The real answers are discovered, before you even know what the question is

Laidlaw

William McIlvanney