William McIlvanney
Photo Credit: Ian Atkinson
In 1977, William McIlvanney changed the face of crime fiction when he created DI Laidlaw, the soulful Glasgow cop. He wrote three books in the series and left one nearly complete novel, recently discovered. The series inspired several generations of Scottish crime writers who followed.
One young fan, Ian Rankin, took Laidlaw as inspiration for his own antihero, John Rebus. Twenty-four books on, Rankin is back to finish what McIlvanney started.
@beathhigh | ianrankin.net
Strange Loyalties
The godfather of Scottish crime is back with a vengeance
“Laidlaw brought Glasgow to life more viscerally than any book I had read before: the good and the bad, the language and the humour, the violence and the drinking … This book made me realise that pacey, streetwise thrillers didn’t have to be American: we had mean streets enough of our own.”
The Guardian asked great crime writers to pick their favourite crime novels, and Christopher Brookmyre thinks you should be reading William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw.
“I don’t like questions. They invent the answers. The real answers are discovered, before you even know what the question is”
Docherty named number four in top ten list of favourite Scottish novels
SBT
Scottish Book Trust