Laidlaw

Jack Laidlaw #1

by William McIlvanney

The unorthodox, complex, sardonically humorous, intriguing policeman Jack Laidlaw makes his debut in an engrossing tale of murder. In Glasgow, the city with the worst slums in Europe, a city of hard men, powerful villains, bitter victims and cynical policemen, Laidlaw uses unconventional methods.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Fiction, Scotland, Noir, Thriller, Audiobook

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

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".

His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award.

Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) and Strange Loyalties (1991) are crime novels featuring Inspector Jack Laidlaw. Laidlaw is considered to be the first book of Tartan Noir.

William McIlvanney was also an acclaimed poet, the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. McIlvanney wrote a screenplay based on his short story Dreaming (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) which was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA.

Since April 2013, McIlvanney's own website has featured personal, reflective and topical writing, as well as examples of his journalism.

Adapted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

TARTAN NOIR



Un cadavere viene trovato per caso sotto un cespuglio di un parco cittadino. A scoprirlo bambini che stanno giocando.
La vittima è una ragazza di diciotto anni: strangolata e stuprata post mortem. Anche sodomizzata. Solo un corpo che affiora nel fiume potrebbe essere un inizio più “classico” di questo. Anche se…
Si procede con buon ritmo e altrettanto piglio immergendo l’hard boiled negli umori esistenzialisti e con buona predisposizione alla sosta riflessiva. In fondo il delitto è uno, come il numero di morti - in fondo sappiamo dal principio chi è il responsabile – ci manca di capire cosa nasconde un delitto così orrendo e brutale. Ci manca di capire se qualcuno ignorerà la legge per fare giustizia.



Laidlaw tiene probabilmente la sua bottiglia di whiskey nel cassetto, a portata di mano, ma sempre protetta da un libro scritto da Kierkegaard. La legge è ciò che ha e che deve difendere, ma solo perché non può avere giustizia.
La storia è ambientata a Glasgow e Laidlaw è ispettore di polizia Squadra Omicidi di quella città. Siamo in Scozia, nella patria del whiskey, calcio rugby e cricket, cattolici e protestanti come se si fosse in Irlanda del Nord. E così il genere noir indossa il tartan.
E sono gli anni Settanta: oltre bere a tutte le ore e ovunque, si fuma ovunque e a tutte le ore, i telefoni sono fissi e alcuni funzionano inserendo monete, quelli cellulari non sono neppure nell’aria.
Eppure, vuoi per la lingua, vuoi per il tono, vuoi per il protagonista, la sensazione è di leggere qualcosa di fresco e attuale, niente che abbia già mezzo secolo di vita.



Laidlaw non smentisce il suo cognome: è un poliziotto che "spiana" la legge, la semplifica, la adatta al suo modo di agire, vivendo ogni caso di cui si occupa come se fosse un fatto personale. Poliziotto esistenzialista?
Non è molto amato dai suoi colleghi e superiori, i suoi metodi non riscuotono applausi. Ma Laidlaw fa spallucce, il suo problema è ben altro: dover convivere con se stesso è la sua condanna, vivere sapendo di stare scontando la colpa di essere se stesso.
McIlvaney nonostante abbia una chiara predilezione per Laidlaw - al quale d’altra parte è consacrato il titolo originale di questo primo romanzo di una trilogia - dedica grande attenzione a tutti i personaggi, sfaccettandoli, rendendoli credibili e interessanti, aprendo porte, inserendoli alla perfezione nella storia.

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the Swedes had the market cornered when it comes to gloomy, depresive, existentialist crime fiction, but William McIlvanney sets out to prove me wrong, going back right to the angsty and dreary seventies. My first impression on meeting Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw was that he is a clone of Martin Beck : slightly alcoholic, broken marriage, taciturn and manic depressive. Later I came to the decision that he has enough substance and nuance to stand on his own merits, despite the noted similarities. I put in the plus column his obvious intelligence, his unconventional methods of investigation, his flashes of black humour, his single-minded determination to solve the case he is working on, ultimately his own doubts and insecurities that make him so much more human and interesting. "These fragments I have shored against my ruin" he exclaims as he contemplates his career and his family life at the age of forty, a policeman who keeps locked in his desk the books of Kierkegaard, Camus and Unamuno, 'like caches of alcohol' to help him through his down periods. He is not popular among his colleagues in the Glasgow Crime Squad, but he is the man they go to when they have a tough case to break. And the one that falls in his lap now is one of the worst: a young girl is found murdered in a Glasgow park - no witnesses, no clues, no suspects, and the press is clamouring loudly for quick results.

While the regular team of policemen follow procedure and inspect the crime scene, interview relatives and picks up the usual suspects, Laidlaw goes 'to the mats', undercover among the criminal underworld of the city, picking up and following every rumour, paying, threatening , cajoling, begging, calling in past debts until he finds his man. McIlvanney deploys a much used and reliable method to get the reader acquainted with his main character: we get to know him indirectly, through the eyes of the rookie constable Brian Harkness, a young man who hasn't yet been embittered and cynical about the job, assigned as partner and liaison to Laidlaw on this case.

The most striking thing about him was something Harkness had noticed every time he had seen him - preoccupation. You never came on him empty. You imagined that if a launch arrived to rescue him from a desert island, he would have something he had to finish before being taken off. It was hard to think of him walking casually, always towards definite destinations.

From Laidlaw wife we get another indirect glimpse of his personality:

Knight errant of the Crime Squad, she reflected bitterly. The trouble was, it occurred to her, that with him you never knew whether you were the maiden or the dragon.

My favorite passage is the one that was probably the most likely for the author to get wrong (I remember there was an unwritten rule in every 70's crime movie that there must be an explicit sex scene somewhere), showing his hero with the guard down and in the arms of a woman not his wife. Here, it turns into a moment of tenderness and introspection and fun, a brief interlude before Laidlaw goes back down the mean and dirty streets of town in search of a killer.

From time to time, Laidlaw gets to make his views known directly, as he engages with Harkness in lively debates about the role of the policeman in society, about ethics and about personal responsibility.

Your opinion of me at the moment worries me exactly as much as dandruff would a chopped-off head. I don't have to justify myself to you. I've got to justify myself to me. And that's a bloody sight harder. [...] If everybody could waken up tomorrow morning and have the courage of their doubts, not their convictions, the millenium would be here. I think false certainties are what destroy us.

The technique of indirect presentation works very well, with the aided bonus of also easing the reader into the more unsavoury elements of Glasgow criminal gangs ('tearaways' in the local jargon). There are several more changes in the point of view, done in an unobtrusive and convincing way, mostly fleshing out secondary characters like the girl's abusive father, the mentally unbalanced killer, several bosses and underlings of what looks to me a criminal structure almost as well organized as the infamous Mob.

Which gets me to one aspect of the novel that justifies the renown it gained as the first 'tartan noir', namely local colour. Once I got used to the Glaswegian idiom, I was rewarded with a real feel for the place and the people, for a story that couldn't take place anywhere else in the world: the working man's town where pride and poverty walk hand in hand, where the polis are the enemy that you must never chat with, with the pubs where all the business transactions take place, with domestic violence and youthfull rebellion, even with the fickle weather - they all play a part in the tapestry of lies, deceit, misdirection, passion and greed that left a young girl brutally raped and murdered in a desolate park on a Sunday morning. There's more than one guilty party in this case, from disfunctional family to broken social contracts and deep seated prejudices.

Everything had changed. You could walk for as long as you liked in this city. It wouldn't know you. You could call every part of it by name. But it wouldn't answer.St. George's Cross was only cars, inventing destinations for the people in them. The cars controlled the people. Sauchiehall Street was a graveyard of illuminated tombstones. Buchanan Street was an escalator bearing strangers.

Sometimes, rarely, the sadness and the cynicism are relieved by the sort of self-deprecating humour the Scots are so fond of:

Sunday in the park - it was a nice day. A Glasgow sun was out, dully luminous, an eye with cataract. Some people were in the park pretending it was warm, exercising that necessary Scottish thrift with weather which hoards every good day in the hope of some year amassing a summer.

In conclusion: good, if a little unoriginal, plot; great local colour; decent pacing and escalation of tension; even better characterization and social commentary; a blurring of the lines between good and bad; confident prose with a touch of the lyrical in the most unexpected places. I would say I am interested in the next Laidlaw novel.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was an occasion many years ago when, cutting a long story short, I found myself in a pub in the East End of Glasgow (regarded as the less salubrious part of that city). The night before a man had been shot whilst sitting in a stationary car in the same locality, in what looked like a gangland-style killing. There was a TV in the pub and a newsreader was covering the story, ending the report with the words “Police have yet to confirm the identity of the victim”. This prompted a burst of laughter from the locals, one of whom shouted “Aye, well WE know who he is”.

I mention that story because it very much describes the sort of setting William McIlvanney provides for this dark 1977 novel, which can be described as that rarest of beasts, a crime novel written in literary style. It’s loved by Scotland’s literary establishment, which to be honest made me a little sceptical of it. I was won over though, mainly by the eloquent writing. The author’s creation, DI Jack Laidlaw, investigates the murder of an 18-year-old girl. The reader is told the identity of the killer at the outset, and the plot is based on the idea that the Police are not the only ones trying to find him. Two local gangsters are also trying to do so, each for their own reasons. Laidlaw delves into the city’s menacing underworld, which is vividly portrayed.

There’s so much going on that it’s difficult to write a coherent review. Laidlaw is a depressive who suffers from migraines, and who is defensive about his personal life. He has a philosophical bent, prone to analysing everyone and everything around him.

Most novels in this category tend to offer good guys and bad guys. McIlvanney refuses to offer the reader that comfortable choice. The character in the book who receives the most negative portrayal, and the most enmity from Laidlaw, is one of his fellow policemen. That character is someone who divides the world into good and evil, and Laidlaw detests him for that.

Glasgow itself is a significant backdrop and when McIlvanney introduces a location, he usually does so in a way that has meaning for those who know the city. Having that knowledge adds to the experience of reading the book.

Some books can be enhanced by a top-class narrator, but in this case I would recommend the written word over the audiobook. It’s narrated by the author, but he’s not a professional at this and makes mistakes. At one point a voice even breaks in to tell McIlvanney he’s made a mistake and he has to repeat the previous sentence (he responds with an affecting “Oh my!” by way of an apology).

One feature is the extent to which the perspective switches. At some point we see the world through the eyes of almost every character. It’s extremely effective, and some of the scenes are very powerful, one in particular when family and neighbours gather in the house of the victim, men in one room, women in another.

One of those books I’d always been curious about. I’m glad that I took the decision to read it.

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a crime writer who decided to get 'all literary'. McIlvanney is a deeply authentic Scottish (Glasgow) writer and poet who decided in the late 1970's (after having written some successful and gritty novels) that he could talk about existential decay now through the device of a crime sequence. He wrote two more of these Laidlaw books, and it became a trilogy. (Laidlaw is the first). Then, when the books were a big success, and his publishers told him that the pot of gold was there for the taking, if he'd only churn out one a year or so, he stopped and turned to poetry.

By 2012 he was in his mid-70's and broke. But the big genre wave (a publishing bonanza) was at its peak -- thanks to Scando crime writers and others -- and McIlvaney got rediscovered through the 'Tartan Noir' writers like Ian Rankin (whom I haven't read; but who I suspect are at least slightly hackish). While those 'boays' are genre writers, McIlvaney is just... the real deal. And this is a magnificent little book.

It is raw, it is philosophical, it is grim, it is both character and plot and language driven --

Highly rec'd.

On a second read, in 2021, a close reading, 4 stars. Good, but not flawless.

[Antonomasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

To quote another GR review: "This isn't a crime writer who decided to get 'all literary'. McIlvanney is a deeply authentic Scottish (Glasgow) writer and poet who decided in the late 1970's (after having written some successful and gritty novels) that he could talk about existential decay now through the device of a crime sequence...this is a magnificent little book. It is raw, it is philosophical, it is grim, it is character and plot and language driven."

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.

This is a world of traditional family structures; strikingly so when I think of how different the situations of various relatives of mine were at the time. I'm sure those who want to could find things to pick at, but whilst this is an androcentric story, McIlvanney's progressiveness shows not in creating a cast of rare female detectives, but by perceptive glimpses into the viewpoints of different women, some formidable, others crushed: ...what's left of her after Bud Lawson's been mincing her ego for years: again, he just phrases these things far better than similar writers.

Some years in the past (and still for some people, and in some places) the way both gay characters are on the wrong side of the tracks, - and twisted to one extent or another by society's prejudices, compelled towards the darker sides of underground-ness - wouldn't have sat well. My own perception is that there's enough variety, joyfulness, integration etc etc in English-language fiction now, that this doesn't matter. Reading about them in 2015 they feel like the exception rather than the rule, a moment in history (cf Giovanni's Room). YMMV. But there's no doubt, for they spell it out, that McIlvanney and his protagonist were compassionate and thought things should be better.

Laidlaw may be one of the ur loner detectives, yet he, his colleagues and adversaries come with more insights than most later examples. Especially into working with a difficult cross-section of the public whilst not feeling as different from them as most colleagues (the public might be easier to understand than philistine colleagues). And into rarely articulated situations like the abject and divisive isolation of being stranded in the company of a partner and their parents. Yet Laidlaw is also the consciously mythologised noir hero facing similarly larger-than-life villains.

Deserves to be read far more widely than it is.

[Lots of quotes below, most direct, some paraphrased in a hurry. No absolute spoilers, but some hints.]

[Ceecee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a republication of a 1977 book, the first in the Laidlaw series and I’m not sure as a crime fiction fan how I’ve missed this series! The book starts in an intriguing way with a ‘monsters’ journey through Glasgow. Later on a body of a young female is found in Kelvingrove Park which DI Laidlaw and DC Harkness investigate. This story is told from several perspectives including Laidlaw and

There’s a lot to like in this book. The plot is engrossing and intriguing, it’s well written in a style as gritty as the city. Laidlaw is likeable and fascinating. He’s bleak, abrasive and a paradox of a man and not easy to live with as his wife Ena will attest. I really like his brand of philosophy which is his own and therefore unique! Harkness is a good character too and the pair develop a bond based on insults. There are some excellent analogies in the storytelling and some very good descriptions. There are nice touches of wry humour which provides a contrast to the bleak story and to some of the harshest characters and there’s very realistic and colourful dialogue between them. The book build well to a dramatic conclusion.

Glasgow provides a great atmospheric backdrop and the city reveals itself vividly through the storytelling and the ‘Weegie’ ’ dialect. It shows a deep religious divide demonstrated clearly through allegiance to the city’s football teams. A lot of the Glaswegian men in the story are very domineering and the women cowed which is more a reflection of the time of the books first publication than today.

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!

Overall, I loved it. It’s twisty with really good characters and a believable plot. I’ll definitely want to read more about Laidlaw.

Many thank to NetGalley and Black Thorn.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant writing. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Highly recommend.

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laidlaw (1977) by William McIlvanney is the first of a trilogy, and is cited as the book that invented tartan noir. McIlvanney also inspired Ian Rankin to become a writer

First published in 1977, does Laidlaw stand up? In short, yes. There's no mystery. We know who the identity of the killer pretty much from the off. The killer is in hiding and pursued by various vengeful pursuers. The question is who will find him first? The police, or one of the others.

Laidlaw is very beautifully written with some wonderful lines. Glasgow is unquestionably the star of this novel and, having lived there, I can confirm this really evokes the place. Laidlaw also powerfully evokes an era. The brutality of the 1970s is here in spades.

There are numerous excellent set pieces. One cop/criminal hard man scene in a dodgy pub in the East End of Glasgow has strong echoes of that classic De Niro and Pacino restaurant scene in Michael Mann's Heat despite this novel obviously predating that film. It's a carefully choreographed dance with the rules changing as it happens and the realisation that the men have more in common than may first appear, and a grudging mutual respect. Jaw droppingly good.

The Laidlaw character is a brilliant creation. An unconventional cop with a philosophical approach to police work. He immerses himself in the case, alienating most of his fellow police in the process.

Laidlaw shares some similarities with Derek Raymond's Factory novels. It's still fresh despite depicting the dark days of the late 1970s. Naturally some of it is anachronistic and of its time, but it's also timeless too. Think Raymond Chandler or Georges Simenon at their very best and you get the idea. I'm going to have to finish the trilogy now, and look forward to The Papers of Tony Veitch and Strange Loyalties.

4/5





The unorthodox, complex, sardonically humorous, intriguing policeman Jack Laidlaw makes his debut in an engrossing tale of murder. In Glasgow, the city with the worst slums in Europe, a city of hard men, powerful villains, bitter victims and cynical policemen, Laidlaw uses unconventional methods.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

”’I thought you didn’t fancy yourself as a hard man?’

‘I don’t. But I don’t really fancy anyone else as one either. I hate violence so much I don’t intend to let anybody practise it on me with impunity. If it came to the bit, he’d win the first time all right. But I’d win the second time, if here was enough of me left to have one. No question about that. I’d arrange it that way. I don’t have fights. I have wars.’”

Laidlaw is the first novel of a trilogy of crime novels by the Scottish writer William McIlvanney. Other reviewers talk about how amazing it is when a poet writes a crime novel. I don’t know anything about his poetry. Or about him for that matter. I’m off the clock right now so I can be honest about saying I don’t know anything about the writer. Today I admitted to reading and liking at least five different authors that I have never read. Oh well, I made the sales.

This is one of those novels that is intriguing and difficult for me to figure out how much I like it.

As a crime story it’s not that good. I found there to be little suspense, I kind of saw the whole resolution coming as easily as a lazy right hook from a gassed fighter. (Gotta try to make this shit manly, right?)

You know who did the crime. And the players all kind of fall in line fairly quickly and the climax is kind of a foregone conclusion. In a crime novel that’s kind of a giant no-no.
But what is interesting about the book is the historical context of the novel. This is a tough one though, because I really only have the books blurbs and copy to go by, and it’s quite possible that copy intending to sell a product to someone might not be the most critically accurate viewpoint. But I’m going to assume that the good folks at Europa and Val McDermid aren’t pulling the wool over my eyes (too much).

These days the idea of the ‘melancholy’ detective, or the philosophical bent anti-hero in crime novels is pretty common place. It’s kind of the bread and butter of someone like Lawrence Block (ok, here is where my whole argument is going to fall apart. Lawrence Block wrote the first Scudder novel, Sins of the Father in 1976, and it is a masterpiece in pretty much this same general genre, let’s pretend I’ve forgotten that fact and I’m just talking out of my ass and nod along for a bit, ok? Ok.). It’s the basic mold that Chandler was writing in, too.

I have no idea what the state of Scottish mystery writing was in 1977. Looking at some of the examples of hardboiled and noir writing this is breaking from some of the boundaries that the genre usually engaged in. One, there was no mystery. I don’t know if this was intentional, but it’s kind of a fourth-wall sort of thing to have a mystery that the audience knows the answer to while the actors are going through obvious motions. Avant-garde or just the author not quite knowing how to craft a crime novel?

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.

If I take it as a historical novel and I don’t think too hard on it and just accept the praise that he is pulling together threads that hadn’t previously been put together then it’s an interesting novel. And I’m going to have to take McDermid’s praise at face value and assume that she means in Scottish novels that he was breaking some new ground. I have to ignore the existence of Block and Westlake’s pre-1977 work, though (and I’m sure some other people who I’m kind of ignorant about).

Reading the book historically (as in I’m reading it today and it was written then) there is also a bit of a problem with knowing if some of the police elements were accurate.

For example the murder happens Saturday night (You can almost hear the Bay City Rollers singing along in every description of the disco clothes the young people were wearing). The body is discovered sometime midday on Sunday. Laidlaw (that’s the detective!) comes to see the body and does a couple of things and then goes home to his family to rest up to start the case on Monday morning.

Is this something they did? Catch a body and write it into your to-do list for tomorrow and then go take a 12 plus hour rest before you start to ask questions or go investigating?

I don’t know. Maybe this is how they were doing things back in the groovy seventies in Glasgow! (that said I also realized how much I like pre-cell phone era crime novels, it adds a more interesting element when people can’t be instantly connected, and it doesn’t feel as stupid when someone could just look something up on google to get an answer and instead go through a song and dance to find out an easily figureoutable answer)

This review is sounding much crankier than I thought it would.

I actually did enjoy this book!

It was a welcome change from some of the not so great mystery novels I’ve read lately, and it broke from some of the more formulaic cliches that the genre has a tendency to deliver.

One final pet peeve and then I’ll wrap this up, the book could have used more prompts about who was talking. I found myself getting lost in the witty little back and forths of one-liners sometimes to know who was actually saying what once the players in the dialogue sparring matches were done throwing their jabs and were starting to say important things. I would think that I would be able to just figure out who was speaking based on what they were saying, but I kept finding myself coming out of the quick exchanges and then being wrong about how was talking. So time-machine editor, add just a few more prompts of who is speaking sometimes.

Thank you!

3.5/5

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wha daur meddle wi’ me…

“Glasgow was home-made ginger biscuits and Jennifer Lawson dead in the park. It was the sententious niceness of the Commander and the threatened abrasiveness of Laidlaw. It was Milligan, insensitive as a mobile slab of cement, and Mrs Lawson, witless with hurt. It was the right hand knocking you down and the left hand picking you up, while the mouth alternated apology and threat.”

When Jennifer Lawson’s body is found in Kelvingrove Park, it falls to Laidlaw and his colleague Harkness to find the man who raped her and beat her to death. But they’re not alone in the search. Jennifer’s father, Bud Lawson, wants to get there first, to mete out his own form of justice. And both Lawson and the killer have contacts in the city’s underworld – men for whom violence replaces judge and jury. So the race is on…

McIlvanney’s Glasgow is a bleak place, with violence never far beneath the surface, fuelled by drink and prejudice. A place of contradictions, where love exists but doesn’t flourish, where loyalty is a product of fear and betrayal is met with uncompromising brutality. Laidlaw is our everyman, our observer – a player, yes, and a flawed one, but with an understanding of humanity that allows him to look beyond events to their causes, and to empathise where others condemn.

Set in the late 1970s, this is the Glasgow of my youth and I found it reeked of authenticity. The language, the attitudes, the hard-drinking culture centred around the city’s pubs, the humour and bravado that defended against the ever-present threat of violence – all more extreme in the book (since I didn’t mingle too much with the underworld!) but all very recognisable. And, sad to say, the sectarianism and homophobia were as present in the real world as in the book.*

“Across the street the door of the Corn Exchange opened suddenly and a small man popped out onto the pavement, as if the pub had rifted. He foundered in a way that suggested fresh air wasn’t his element and at once Harkness saw that he was beyond what his father called the pint of no return.”

The characterisation throughout the book is particularly strong, each character as believable as the next. Though there’s an air of menace throughout, there are only a couple of graphically violent episodes and they are all the more shocking for their rarity. Fear runs through the book and, as with all the best crime fiction, moral certainties become blurred round the edges. McIlvanney’s use of language is brilliant – the Glaswegian dialect is completely authentic, and I particularly enjoyed how Laidlaw slips between educated English and dialect depending on whom he’s speaking to. I now fully understand why this book is considered the progenitor of the Tartan Noir genre – I can see it’s influence on so many of the current crop of Scottish crime writers, not to mention the early Taggart series – and I’m duly ashamed that it took me so long to get around to reading it. Highly recommended.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Canongate, via NetGalley.

*Before Visit Scotland sues me, I’d just like to point out that Glasgow has changed now and is a wonderful, sophisticated place full of welcoming, warm-hearted, friendly and non-violent people!! Honest!

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Undoubtedly impressive, I should probably have read this before I did (though thanks to my Mum for pushing me to read it!) this certainly stood up to all the praise and all the critical acclaim with respect to the importance of this novel in the Tartan noir genre. I am certainly looking forward to reading the remaining two in the series - this has all of the cleverness, gritty description, convincingness and style that I find most enjoyable about the Scottish crime that I read. It was an immersive yet relatively short experience - honed and contained and impactful.

The only reasons I am however adjudging this as falling just below a five-star read are that the strong style did at times slightly get in the way. The focus on Laidlaw as the (now increasingly) stereotypical troubled enigmatic detective did for me overshadow the other interesting characters and the crime at the centre of the plot. A plot which - though realistic - lacked complexity despite confusing me at times. It seems unfair to criticise a couple of areas in which I felt the novel didn't quite work, when so much of the writing was so impressive, perhaps the contrast throws this into more light.

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Laidlaw #1

Set in Glasgow in the 1970's

A girl has been murdered in Kelvingrove park. They know who the killer is, they just need to find him. But they are not the only ones that's looking for the killer. The victims father wants to deal out his own justice and involves Glasgows underworld. Laidlaw is partnered with new recruit, DC Harkness.

DI DI Jack Laidlaw is misunderstood by his colleagues. He doesn't like DI Milligan. He doesn't really like authority. There is Glasgow dialogue which I always like when an author uses the dialogue from the area they are writing about. It makes it more realistic. I liked the authors writing style. This is a dark and gripping read that also has some black humour. It's action packed and full of twists.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Cannongate and the author William Mcilvanney for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Laidlaw #1

Set in Glasgow in the 1970's.

A girl has been murdered in Kelvingrove park. They know who the killer is, theynjust need to find him. But they are ot the only ones looking for the killer. Thenfictims father wants to deal out his own justice and involves Glasgows underworld. Laidlaw is partnered with new recruit, DC Harkness.

DI Jack Laidlaw is misunderstood by his colleagues. He does not like DI Milligan. He doesn't really like authority. There is Glasgow dialogue which I always like when an author uses the dialogue from the area they are writing about. It makes it more realistic. I liked the authors writing style. This is a dark and gripping read that also has some dark humor. It's action packed and full of twists.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Cannongate and the author William Mcilvanney for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the first of the original trilogy.

A young girl with a very violent father and an unassertive mother is found murdered in Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow.

It turns out she had lied about where she was going and what her true intentions were on the fateful Saturday night, not only to her parents but to her best friend too.

Laidlaw has an affinity with the violent criminals of the city and understands them well. This allows him insights into how to find out the killer.

The writing is very descriptive and lyrical and allows you to paint the scenes in your mind. The Glaswegian pronunciations are all spelled out and it may take a bit of re-reading to understand them all, but this adds another layer to the story and makes you feel you're right there in Glasgow with these people, who are all suffering to some extent. Glasgow in the 60's wasn't an easy place to live in and this comes across on every page.

Beautifully done and recommended.

[Charlie Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laidlaw

William Mcilvanney, escritor escocés fallecido en 2015 se hizo célebre escribiendo novela negra ambientada en Glasgow en los años 70. Su estilo se conoció como “tartan noir”, sirvió de inspiración a autores de la talla de Ross Mcdonald, Ian Rankin o Val Mcdermid.

El propio Ian Rankin comenta esto de esta novela:

«Es más que dudoso que yo hubiese acabado escribiendo novelas policíacas sin la influencia del Laidlaw de McIlvanney, un autor literario que volvió su mirada hacia la novela criminal urbana y contemporánea, y demostró que el género servía para abordar dilemas morales y conflictos sociales».

En esta novela aparece el cuerpo de una mujer joven en un parque de Glasgow. Enseguida conoceremos al autor porque lo que interesa en esta historia es conocer el entorno de la víctima y del asesino. El odio religioso protestantes/católicos, el deseo de venganza o la homosexualidad, que en esa época estaba muy mal vista, forman parte de la trama.

La búsqueda del asesino no va a ser solo cosa de la policía, hay más gente interesada en encontrarlo. Habrá que ver quien lo atrapa primero.

Jack Laidlaw es un policía inestable, depresivo, solitario, que se lleva mal con casi todo el mundo. Tiene todos los problemas que vemos en protagonistas de novela negra, esto no es ninguna novedad. Lo que es diferente en este policía es la constante intención de entender al delincuente poniéndose cuestiones del porqué de sus actos. Esto le hace tener en frente a sus compañeros.

Para aquel que haya leído “Irene” de Pierre Lemaitre igual se acuerda que esta novela está presente en la obra de Lemaitre. En “Irene”, el asesino copia las escenas de sus asesinatos de libros como La Dalia Negra, American Psycho o Laidlaw.

No es casual que Laidlaw aparezca en el libro de Lemaitre ya que, para él, la novela de William Mcilvanney es la mejor novela negra de siempre.

[Effie Saxioni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1977,just wow.
5/5

Ελπίζω, με την ευκαιρία της κυκλοφορίας του βιβλίου του συγγραφέα που ολοκλήρωσε ο Ράνκιν και με το οποίο θα συστηθεί στο ελληνικό κοινό αρκετά χρόνια μετά τον θάνατό του, να δρομολογηθούν και τα υπόλοιπα βιβλία της σειράς.
5/5

[Linda Strong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack Laidlaw is going after a killer. A young woman is found brutally murdered in a park. Laidlaw is extremely unorthodox in the way he is driven to find justice for the victims. This victim happens to be the daughter of a violent criminal .. and father is demanding the killer be found or he will find him himself.

It's a fast start with a teenage boy, brandishing a knife, is running through the woods ... fleeing the murder scene. What reason could this young man have for murdering this woman? Who he is ... what he has done .... and most importantly why ... remains to be seen.

In this first book of the series, the reader is introduced to Laidlaw's personal life.... his soon to be ex-wife, his lover, good friend Brian Harkness, and multiple others that he meets and greets along the way. There are an additional 2 books in this series.

This is a Scottish Noir written and set in the 70s. Although not a contemporary story, it has aged well. The characters are skillfully written and have stood the test of time. The plot is a bit complex, but becomes easier to understand the more you read.

Many thanks to Canongate / Black Thorn / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No fairies, no monsters, just people."

This is a 'Tartan' noir. McIlvanney specialises in painting in the many shades of grey, leaving this not a simple take of a black and white Glasgow. There are no monsters. There are only human beings, and we are not allowed to externalise the 'monstrous' things we do but to acknowledge them as part of us.

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tartan Noir circa 1977
Review of the Canongate Books audiobook edition (2013) of the 1977 original

Canongate Books appear to be doing a 2020 revival of the Laidlaw crime series by Scottish writer William McIlvanney (1936-2015) with new covers such as the one for Laidlaw (April 2, 2020 release) which is also the current equivalent on Audible. This 2013 audiobook was recorded with the author's own narration.

I was intrigued to hear the author's own reading as those are comparatively rare in the audiobook world. It may not be the best format though for your introduction to Laidlaw. It is definitely authentic to have the book read in a Glaswegian accent, but I found my mind wandering in the appreciation of the musicality of the speech and often realizing that I had not been following the plot. I'm going to need to revisit this in print.

[Deb Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack Laidlaw may be one the most fascinating and simultaneously exasperating, police detective to come along in the genre. His bend toward philosophical thought can make even the simplest question or comment from another into an existential activity.

His home life is divided between the sheer pleasure he receives from parenting his three children and the sometimes quiet, sometimes not, verbal wars with his wife.

Laidlaw's policing techniques leave him set apart from his peers and bring him disdain from some. A private man, Laidlaw is the subject of speculation among other officers, to which Laidlaw pays no heed.

The reading here requires a bit more concentration and effort to understand the complexities of the protagonist, but that effort is rewarded with an excellent plot and multi-faceted characters.

[Skip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young woman, Jennifer Lawson, is dead: strangled and sexually assaulted, and her body has been dumped in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park. Her father is a mean, overbearing tyrant, and seeking justice. The identity of the killer is reveled early on, as is a probable motive. Brash and unconventional DI Jack Laidlaw is paired with a rookie to find the killer before further harm befalls him from several others. Laidlaw is much like the some of his Scandinavian noir detectives, such as Martin Beck or Harry Hole: dark, brooding, dysfunctional family life, and a drinker. I found the Scottish accents hard to follow at times.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

what's better than a poet writing noir novels. nothing, that's what. glasgow in the 1970's seems a bit like freetown in the naughties: brutal, poor, unfair, corrupt, biting, where the people wonder why you never come to the bar anymore, they miss you you see.
so a cop procedural with bad guys, grieving parents, and even some cops, trying to solve the crime.
wonderfully philosophical, beer-mat-poetical, and lots of social geography, this 1st of 3 novels is just what i like, gritty noir with brains (n eggs).

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

What set this apart for me is the complexity, and not of the plot, but of the characters. There is the title character, Jack Laidlaw, a hard-driven detective brimming with ideals about how his job should be done. His personal life is a mess, and his co-workers dislike him, but the reader must admire him.

“He was potentially a violent man who hated violence, a believer in fidelity who was unfaithful, an active man who longed for understanding … He knew nothing to do but inhabit the paradoxes.”

Each of the many people who walk through the story has a set of goals and issues, and McIlvanney gives us hints of their depth no matter how short a time they’re on the stage. There’s Laidlaw’s partner in the case--a relative newbie to the profession; his understandably cranky wife; his nemesis on the police force; the perp; the victim; the perp’s parents; the victim’s parents; crime bosses; the perp’s lover …

There are so many stories within a story, showing that what gives crime its complexity usually isn't some super-clever criminal or incredibly shrewd investigator. The complexity comes from all the people--on both sides--each with their web of talents and problems.

“What I’ve got against folk like Lawson isn’t that they’re wrong. It’s just that they assume they’re right. Bigotry’s just unearned certainty, isn’t it?”

Brilliant. Makes me want to plan a trip to Scotland and then move on to the rest in this series.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Oldie but definitely a Goodie
This rerelease by Canongate Books of William McIlvanney’s defunctive detective is a brilliant reminder as to why he is considered one of Scotland’s best crime writers. For people my age, mid – 40s it makes the original Taggert look like a southern softie. This book was originally published back in 1977, and was the first in the Laidlaw trilogy. The novel is set in the 70s with all the fashions and griminess I remember as a kid, what would now be called post-industrial Glasgow, pre-Thatcher.

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.

We are introduced to Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw as he investigates the sexual murder of Jennifer Lawson, who’s father he had met in the early hours of a Sunday when he reported her missing. His daughter was found hidden on Glasgow Green on a Sunday morning minus her panties and completely defiled. It shows how desperate and disgusting the world can be. To assist him in the search he has been given a DC who has transferred into the Crime Squad, and Harkness has been warned that Laidlaw is different and he is to report back to the main inquiry.

It is through this background of moral concerns of mid 70s Glasgow and all the social issues that go hand in hand with it. As Laidlaw tip toes his way through the moral decline of the City he used gangland villains such as John Rhodes to act as his ears on the street, if it works is a different matter. We are introduced to some of the gangland villains of Glasgow, and the self made men who could do without the police looking too closely at their affairs.

This wonderful crime novel shows the City’s dark shadows and how sometimes you need to operate in them to achieve real success. This is a wonderful book with an original defective detective who solves the crime his way which is certainly not how the rest of the Police Force would do it, but he does succeed. Harkness is a willing voyeur on this journey through the harsh Glasgow criminal world on a learning curve and finally respecting Laidlaw.

This is a wonderful trip back into the 1970s and the language that McIlvanney used then brings back the image of a decaying Glasgow and the harsh cruel world that operated around the city of the day. With people today walking around with mobile phones this brings memories back when not everyone has a phone at all and the old red phone boxes with your change waiting for the pips. This is a timeless classis well worth reading today.

[Julie Griffith Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

William If Ilvanney, Laidlaw, Black Thorn, April 2, 2020.

A literate, witty novel first published in the 70s, William Mc Ilvanney's Laidlaw, recently re-released by Black Thorn, set the foundation for the Tartan Noir sub-genre of crime fiction. Detective Jack Laidlaw is a layered and nuanced character, whose philosophies of life and policing give shape to this novel and the two other volumes in the Laidlaw trilogy Mc Ilhanney wrote and set in Glasgow.

The crime in Laidlaw is the murder of a young girl who disappeared after going to the disco one evening. Her family and friends are questioned by the "polis.". Several Glasgow hard men are suspects, as well, and the reader is introduced them and their machinations. (Be aware that there is a certain amount of vividly described violence here.)

I have not relished a novel or character as much as I did Laidlaw in years, and I regret that I did not make the acquaintance much sooner. Highly recommended.

Thank you to William Mc Ilvanney, Black Thorn, and NetGalley for the ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting that the first of this trilogy inspired Ian Rankin in his writing. A gritty Glaswegian murder set in the 1970s. Laidlaw is a complex character with his own style of policing and you can see the similarities with Rebus.

A girl is murdered and we know immediately who did it. The story follows the underworld of Glasgow and Laidlaw with Harkness his colleague interview a series of people. The psychological aspects are great with Laidlaw a damaged detective trying to make sense of his life. A well deserved CWA Silver Dagger winner.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Laidlaw was quite brilliant. I tried it without much expectation but I found it gripping, haunting, thoughtful and outstandingly well written.

First published in 1977, Inspector Laidlaw is a thoughtful, moral detective moving in a thoroughly immoral Glasgow underworld. He has to investigate a horrible sex-killing, while some of Glasgow’s hardest criminal bosses also try to track down the perpetrator. It’s beautifully done: there is a superb sense of time and place, an ever-present atmosphere of suppressed violence (which only becomes graphic reality once, making it shockingly effective) and a thoughtful eye cast over everything.

William McIlvanney’s writing is just superb; almost poetic sometimes and always remarkably evocative. Some typical nuggets include “They drank, considering each other from opposite sides of an attitude,” or “...not so much a pub as a transit-camp to dereliction.” He can also produce the odd simile worthy of Chandler, like “The old man opened the door with all the ease of the Venus de Milo cracking a safe.” Through Laidlaw, McIlvanney also brings a subtle, insightful view of the morals and origins of the people and events. I found it an utter joy to read, in spite of the bleak story and many deeply unpleasant characters.

This is a wonderful discovery for me and I will be reading more McIlvanney in the very near future. Very, very warmly recommended.

[John Gaynard · Rating 5 out of 5]

For years I heard that Laidlaw by McIlvanney was a classic and the father of all modern Scottish crime novels. Now that I have read it myself, I can say that I totally agree with this evaluation and I will read as soon as posible the two books McIlvanney wrote after Laidlaw. The dialect can be a little difficult to understand in the beginning, but it is well worth spending a couple of seconds on the first few phrases to get yourself equipped for reading the rest of the book and getting an education about the Glasgow hard man/soft man Laidlaw from a first rate writer.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5*

[Craig Pittman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite crime novelists these days is Ian Rankin, dubbed by James Ellroy as "the king of tartan noir." But before Rankin, there was William McIlvanney, the man who showed him and everyone else -- Val McDermid, Malcolm Mackay and the rest -- how to write a Scottish crime novel. He's still miles ahead of them, too.

Starting with "Laidlaw" in 1977, McIlvanney -- a prize winning "literary" writer -- penned three novels about Jack Laidlaw, a tough but tender detective-philosopher tracking criminals and dealing with hard men around Glasgow. I haven't read the other two, but I sure will now.

"Laidlaw" is an amazing feat of writing from first to last. It's not a conventional mystery -- we know who the killer is right from the first chapter, when McIlvanney describes how odd it is to be running through the streets with blood on you.

What we don't know is how the plot will then spin and twist and turn as Laidlaw tries to catch the murderer, and in doing so beat several other people to the solution before they can mete out revenge or something like it.

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.

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.’

The book took me a while to read because very little of it is done in dialogue, and what dialogue there is is often written using Glaswegian dialect, which can be hard to interpret. It took me about half the book to figure out that when someone says, "What's the gemme?" they meant "what's the game?" as in "What are you up to?"

But it's well worth the trouble. The climax of the story didn't go at all the way I expected it to, and I didn't feel like McIlvanney had cheated me either. I suppose the only letdown in reading "Laidlaw" is knowing there are only two more books with him as a character. McIlvanney had mentioned in 2013 that he was thinking of writing a fourth Laidlaw novel, but he died in 2015 without ever publishing another.