The Weekenders – The extraordinary, devastatingly dark Scottish mystery

Our summary description

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

The Weekenders opens with the unexplained deaths of young Eastern European women in Glasgow, crimes few seem willing to investigate too closely. What begins as a local mystery slowly stretches outward, leading to a grand house in the Scottish countryside and a history rooted in wartime secrecy.

In 1966, Stevie “Minto” Milloy, a former footballer turned rookie reporter, follows the trail of a student found dead on the moors outside the city. His questions are met with resistance at every step. Three years later, courtroom sketch artist Donald “Doodle” Malpas becomes involved in a case that feels disturbingly familiar, as another young woman connected to a Glasgow mission is killed and quietly ignored.

Running beneath both stories is an earlier thread. In Italy in 1943, a small group of soldiers break away from their unit and begin to live by rules of their own. Their actions echo forward to Raskine House, where Glasgow’s elite gather for secretive weekends that blur privilege, cruelty and power.

From David F. Ross, The Weekenders is a dark, unsettling crime novel about exploitation, silence and the damage done when the powerful believe they are untouchable.