A Bad, Bad Place: A Novel

by Frances Crawford

A dazzling debut mystery about a young girl and her grandmother grappling with the fallout of an unexplained murder in 1979 Glasgow

If it hadn’t been for her wee stupid dog Sid Vicious, 12-year-old Janey Devine might never have stumbled upon the corpse of Samantha Watson. And then maybe she’d still be able to sleep at night. And maybe her nana wouldn’t be so worried sick all the time. And maybe Billy “The Ghost” Watson, a notorious gangster, wouldn’t be on her tail—for it’s Billy’s daughter who was left for dead on those train tracks, and now Billy wants answers.

Fear and gossip spread through the tight-knit community of Possilpark, Glasgow, and while Janey swears she can’t remember the details of that morning, the cops think she’s hiding something—and indeed, there’s something she knows that she’s not quite ready to tell anyone else, not even her nana, who won’t rest until this whole thing is behind them.

Shot through with remarkable humor and voice, Frances Crawford’s stunning debut is a coming-of-age whodunnit, an intimate portrait of a working-class neighborhood that weaves Janey’s innocent candor and her nana’s hard-earned wisdom into a sweeping tale of grief and survival that marks the arrival of a major new voice in crime fiction.

320 pages, Paperback

Expected publication March 3, 2026

Reviews

[Rachel N · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s 1979 and Janey Devine, a 12 year old from Possilpark, Glasgow, is walking her dog, Sid Vicious, when she finds the murdered body of Samantha Watson. The novel doesn’t just focus on who was behind the murder but concentrates more on the impact on Janey and her grandmother. Janey is unable to sleep at night, constantly picking at her skin and worrying herself sick at what she should and shouldn’t tell the police, while her grandmother worries about her and still struggles with her own grief at the loss of Janey’s family. It’s made all the more difficult by the fact that the victim is the daughter of a notorious gangster, Billy ‘The Ghost’ Watson who wants information from them himself.

All of which sounds serious and depressing but that could not be further from the truth. This is a debut novel by Frances Crawford but it’s absolutely brilliant, funny, full of life, completely convincing in its characters (all of them with both qualities and flaws) and its setting of a working class area of Glasgow. The plot is very well put together but it’s the people who really stand out and Janey and her gran especially so. There’s a wonderful sense of uncertainty over who can and can’t be trusted, including the police, and everybody’s actions make sense. The book is set in Glasgow and a lot of it is written as spoken - I’m Scottish and used to live in Glasgow so it’s not a problem, but as is the way with most books which include some dialect, you soon pick up the rhythms and it adds to the story rather than detracts.

I loved The List of Suspicious Things last year and this really reminded me of it – not because it’s in any way derivative but because it stands out as a new writer who writes young girls brilliantly well and who really creates a sense of time and place and offers something new and interesting. I can’t wait to see what Frances Crawford writes next and hope this will be the huge hit it deserves to be.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review. This review has been added to Waterstones and Goodreads and will be added to Amazon on publication day.