My Blog

Retirement. Publishers, thank you for the many years of reading pleasure you gave me, but all good things must come to an end. Due to failing eyesight I am forced to retire. I can no longer review your books, and any that you send will be donated to the local library, unread. Do not send any more. I can only read for a couple hours every day, and this does not allow me to finish a book in reasonable time. I will be devoting time to my own books from now on, and reading on a personal level. Books that interest me. I prefer paperbacks and hardbacks, not eBooks. My eyesight has been failing the last few years, and I cannot handle hundreds of review books any more. My books are still available for review. Anyone interested in reviewing any of them, they are found in the Link to Tom’s Books On Amazon. Contact me for pdf copies at fadingshadows40@gmail.com

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Laidlaw


Laidlaw (Crime)
By William McIlvanney
ISBN #978-1609452018
Europa Edition www.europaeditions.com
250 Pages
Price $12.00
Rating 5-Stars

“Laidlaw Takes The Reader Through The Dark Streets of Glasgow In This Character Study Of An Unorthodox Detective.”

In an abandoned building within a run-down section of Glasgow, a young homosexual boy kills a girl in a fit of rage, as they are involved in a sex act. Calling his male lover, he asks for help, and this brings about several forces that will eventually come together. Part of the police investigative team is Laidlaw, a detective who moves in odd directions to solve a case, while the other team uses strict police procedural. The father of the girl wants to kill the boy with his own hands, while the boy’s lover works to keep him alive and get him out of town. But the man he calls wants the boy dead also, and hires his own killer. Can Laidlaw and his partner reach the boy before he is killed? It’s a rush for one side to bring a killer to trial, while the other side wants to kill a monster.

There is never a mystery to the crime, as the reader knows from the start who killed the girl and why. The main story surrounds Laidlaw, and his, perhaps, strange ways. I think his wife explains him a little for us. With love long since gone from their marriage, when he walks into her room, she says to herself, “Introducing in the red corner.” Laidlaw had been an amateur boxer, and in a way he was still fighting the world. It was definitely an interesting story, and kept me turning the pages. For readers who find local dialect charming in a book, I admit its use here made the dialogue hard to follow for me. Highly recommended for mystery readers who enjoy characters working outside the norm to solve a murder case.

Tom Johnson
Detective Mystery Stories

No comments:

Post a Comment