Brit Grit Alley features news and updates on what's happening down British crime fiction's booze and blood soaked alleyways.
Laidlaw was his first crime novel and is considered a classic by all and sundry, including Ian Rankin, Tony Black, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Chrispher Brookmyre and more:
The Laidlaw books are like fine malt whisky - the pure distilled essence of Scottish crime writing (Peter May )
Fastest, first and best, Laidlaw is the melancholy heir to Marlowe. Reads like a breathless scalpel cut through the bloody heart of a city (Denise Mina )
A crime trilogy so searing it will burn forever into your memory. McIlvanney is the original Scottish criminal mastermind (Christopher Brookmyre )
It's doubtful I would be a crime writer without the influence of McIlvanney's Laidlaw. Here was a literary novelist turning his hand to the urban, contemporary crime novel and proving that the form could tackle big moral concerns and social issues (Ian Rankin )
It was first published in 1977 -how punk is that?- and has just been republished by Canongate Books. You can find Doug Johnstone interviewing McIlvanney here and/or pick up a copy of Laidlaw here. More of McIlvanney's crime novels should be published pretty damned soon.
There'll be more carrryings on down Brit Grit Alley next week.
