Laidlaw (Laidlaw Trilogy)

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The story portrayed Glasgow as a sentient being, the feeling that all is being watched, nothing goes unnoticed, nothing is left to chance. It never forgets. DC Laidlaw is a bit of a loose cannon. He doesn’t dance to the beat of anyone’s drum but his own. He has the measure of his superior officer, DI Milligan. He’s blindly ambitious but sleekit. He won’t think twice about bending the rules to serve his sense of entitlement. He can’t keep tabs on DC Laidlaw, a man that stops at nothing to get his man – even staying in a hotel for the duration of the case leaving his unhappy wife, Ena, and their three children, he’s a one-man-band.

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?" 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.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. 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.

The sexism with regards to women’s roles in the community was also spot-on for the period, not only reflecting Glasgow values but also the biases of most of the Western world — certainly Canada, where I lived. Sometimes, rarely, the sadness and the cynicism are relieved by the sort of self-deprecating humour the Scots are so fond of:

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

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.

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. In Laidlaw (#1) we are introduced to Detective Inspector Laidlaw. DI Laidlaw has demons and is in the midst of a failing marriage. The irony is he has a soft spot for criminals and a disdain for the law. 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. A classic of the genre…If you only read one crime novel this year, this should be it.' - Guardian (UK)A minimum of three people can use a group room. The system shows the maximum number of people that can fit into each space. 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. Dante networked audio is available throughout the building as described in the how to use Dante video. This technology can be used for many things, such as studio recordings of music, band practices across several rooms, live streaming and podcasts. 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.

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. 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. 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. Laidlaw was the character that helped McIlvanney establish himself as the genius who defined the tartan noir genre. Through his Laidlaw character, McIlvanney infused his knowledge of Glasgow and it’s old-school cultural misogyny, class angst, rugged masculinity, and an environment that is decaying by the hour to create the dark- noir-theme novels that became hugely popular.When I heard about this new novel written by Ian Rankin and the late William McIlvanney joining forces for the first ever case of D.I. Laidlaw, Glasgow’s original gritty detective I just couldn’t resist reading it. I am very familiar with Ian Rankin’s work and enjoy the Rebus series but have never read any of Mcllvanney’s books. Mcllvanney’s widow found the unfinished manuscript of The Dark Remains and approached the publisher with it, who in turn asked Ian Rankin if he would be interested in finishing it. This really is a combined effort and Rankin does a good job in adopting the same feel for the novel, so much that I was unable to see the join. The Dark Remains is set in 1972 and so predates the trilogy. We revisit characters from the trilogy in earlier times. The Dark Remains is undeniably authentic and a true testament to everything Glasgow was in the ’70s and ’80s. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading the Laidlaw series by the late and great William McIlvanney but I will be rectifying that as soon as possible. Gangland Glasgow and its brutal violence and its territorial wars, the tone was set and it was addictive as it was horrifying. Ian Rankin had massive shoes to fill but he laced them up, took pen to paper, and paid homage to Scotland’s father of Tartan Noir. 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? Now that I'm accustomed to their approach, I will be reading more by both authors. First up, the continuation of the Laidlaw books.