The Dark Remains – The Crime and Thriller Book of the Year 2022

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

Glasgow in the early days of DC Jack Laidlaw is a city balanced on the edge of violence. Lawyer Bobby Carter has been found dead, and his work for criminals on both sides of the law leaves no shortage of suspects. As rival gangs begin to circle, the killing threatens to tip something already volatile into open conflict.

Laidlaw is young, instinctive, and uninterested in pleasing superiors. He listens to the streets rather than procedure, following a sense for trouble that cannot be taught. His search for Carter’s killer moves through pubs, closes, and conversations thick with evasion, revealing a city where loyalty is fragile and truth rarely announces itself cleanly.

Written from an unfinished manuscript by William McIlvanney and completed by Ian Rankin, The Dark Remains returns to the roots of modern Scottish crime fiction. It is a novel steeped in moral unease, where justice is never simple and the past lingers in every choice, waiting to be reckoned with.