Denzil Meyrick (1965–2025)

POSSIBLE TRIGGERS: SEVERE, VERY GRAPHIC ACTS of VIOLENCE
It seems that a Glasgow mob boss may have returned from the dead to exact his revenge on those who brought him and his empire down and sent him to prison. The gangster, James Machie, is a nasty specimen of humanity...but was eventually done in by a combination of good old fashion police work and associates who were more than willing to turn evidence in exchange for being placed in the Scottish equivalent of witness protection. When show more those informers begin turning up as corpses, DCI Jim Daley, whose young partner also had a hand in the case, is confronted with evidence that the person he believed long dead is still alive and kicking. The race is now on to find this resurrected bad guy before he can start to cross off every name on his "folks I want to kill" list. This would be much more believable if the plot here hadn't kept falling over itself. We kept getting explanations of events after the fact, with those explanations often being unclear. The graphic violence, which I was not opposed to in itself, started before I had even read 12 pages...and it is severe with all capital letters, which I was also not necessarily opposed to, but it will diffidently bother a lot of readers, and it goes on way, way too long, without anyone trying to stop it. Perhaps the police had reason to be extra cautious since part of that violence was when a young police officer sees his partner’s head blown apart...BEFORE he actually died. There were also several pages of a man being macheted to death then his bound-and-gagged wife being shown the corpse before her own head is blasted to smithereens. I won't go on any longer... I think everyone gets the picture. I was totally surprised by how graphic these events were and how long they went on, taking up so much of the book. This hasn't happened in any of the other books I have read by this author. It only served to ruin what could have been a good story. show less

This is a solid enough police procedural with its selling point being that it is set in the Scottish Western Isles. It has excellent characterisation, a fast pace and some very good descriptive writing. I enjoyed it even if it was bloody obvious who the murderer was two thirds of the way through.

This sets me a problem. I don't do spoilers and this is a detective novel but I have a complaint about this book that is really a much broader complaint about a disturbing cultural trend. I am going show more to have to dance around this and try and mislead you as to the killer while telling a truth.

That truth starts with procedural crime being read mostly by women. Women are understandably and naturally predisposed to fear violence from rogue, unbalanced or sociopathic men. Ergo, crime novels and TV series are increasingly about violence perpetrated on women.

Is this really because criminal activity is centred on sexual violence of an extreme nature on women or is it because the concept sells? I think it is the latter. All human beings, men or women assuage their fears and express their aspirations and dreams through the imagination.

This is as true of the wonderful Marvel and DC fantasy films for the adolescent in us and for the masculine action thriller as for the sexual or existential depredations of the crime or horror genre. Let's work through our fears and desires. Nothing wrong with that so long as we know it is fantasy.

Unfortunately, the tropes are having a deleterious cultural effect in the case of the criminal procedural whether produced by the BBC, Scandinavian production companies on a roll or cynical publishers. They calm old private fears but create new social fears that are now neurotic.

Feminists are beginning to complain from their perspective about the repeated images of women being raped, brutalised, trafficked and killed but they are missing the point. They seem to think that men get some deviant pleasure from this but it is not men who watch or read this stuff at all.

It is women who are being catered for. The initial fantasy is that 'men are potentially like this' but this becomes the fantasy that 'men are actually like this'. What starts off as the working out of a natural if often irrational fear becomes opportunistically marketed as something more.

It is men who suffer from the constant reinforcement that they are a threat or socially problematic when there is no evidence of anything of the kind (at least to the intense degree implied by the memes involved) - and yet is women who are the true social victims here.

It is women who are constantly placed into a psychological position where they are surrounded by threats. Most see through it but some do not and so we see in our culture a rising neurosis of fear - similar to the hysterical paranoia over terrorism.

The chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are very limited and yet our entire culture has been skewed, especially in terms of expenditures, by the small threat that there is. Women too live in a culture of fear constructed as a negative aura in social discourse.

The truth is that there are a few seriously deranged and disturbed males out there and women are well advised to be pragmatic and realistic about placing themselves in risky situations. Society needs to recognise this and go the extra mile in small things like street lights and large things too.

But the level of fear and anxiety engendered in commercially opportunistic literature and film by the market is damaging women, not because of the much mooted 'objectification' (the radical feminist argument) but because it is a lie. The exaggerated crimes that fuel these genres are rare.

This is not to diminish the lack of respect and molestation in society that needs dealing with - preferably in draconian ways when proven - but such every day stories do not 'make good copy'. Things seem to need to be hyped up in order not only to entertain but create catharsis.

A few great works of art would normally help in doing this, waking us up (especially men in this case) to the wrongness of treating women as mere objects of use. But this is not what is happening in our culture. What is happening is the normalisation of extreme terror for entertainment.

It is rare to find myself on the same side as the radfems but we converge on this. I think their analysis is mistaken but they are noting the same phenomenon that disturbs me - the exaggeration of sexual violence for market reasons. In fact, it demeans men as much as women.

The tragedy of this book is that a rather good writer has allowed himself to be trapped into this mode with its plot cliches, p0ssibly because he or his publisher thought it was 'marketable' to be so. It certainly meant that the killer was far too predictable (a caricature) far too soon.

And, yes, I would read the next and other books in the series if only because the teasers in the book clearly directed the reader to more 'realistic' tales of organised crime. I do not condemn the writer - he is a victim of our market culture as much as the rest of us. show less

The book begins with a couple of vignettes guaranteed to get your attention.

In the first, legendary Glasgow gangster James Machie is being transported back to prison from hospital when the ambulance is….erm….intercepted. Suffice to say he won’t have to worry about serving out those 5 life sentences.

The second takes place 5 years later in Melbourne. Gerald used to run with the Machie clan. After giving evidence at Machie’s trial, he & his wife got new identities & were whisked away show more to Australia. You’d think that would be far enough. You’d be wrong. The attack itself is brutal but when the killer’s face is caught on CCTV, jaws drop in police stations right across Scotland.

For Kinloch DCI Jim Daley, it qualifies as a full-on WTF moment. Five years ago he & colleague DS Brian Scott were largely responsible for the case that finally put away much of the notorious Machie clan. It was a stressful & dangerous time. Many of the cops received death threats & Brian was shot.

When Jim was transferred to Kinloch by Superintendent John Donald (a total git, BTW, but I digress….) he saw it as a chance to slow down, relax & spend more time with his wife. It’s good to have a dream, Jim. But the reality is the killing didn’t end in Melbourne. Family members of Machie’s old goon squad begin to drop like flies. It seems someone is getting revenge on those who helped put Machie away.

Jim & Brian are grateful to be far from Glasgow until Supt. Donald comes clean. One of the biggest rats was Frank MacDougall & he & his family disappeared into witness protection after the trial. In fact they’ve been stashed on a farm outside Kinloch for the last 5 years.

This is the first I’ve read from this author & I really enjoyed it. There are several sub-plots running along side the main story line which revolves around “just how dead is he” James Machie. Office politics, a bent insider, old mobsters who would sell their mother & Jim’s personal life all contribute to a thorny, fast paced story. Characters range from the enigmatic to the colourful. Brian in particular was a bit of a challenge. Dialogue is written to reflect the vernacular of where he grew up & his accent could mince haggis.

Much is cleared up by the end but there are a few loose threads that will have major repercussions for several characters in the future. This is actually book #2 in the series after “Whiskey in Small Glasses” & I look forward to getting my hands on the next one to see how it plays out. show less

Clever, bantery, and sufficiently twisty that I wanted to finish it, this historical mystery still took ages to read not least because it pales in comparison to the actual vintage mysteries that inspired it. Having just read a Heyer holiday-themed mystery beforehand, I struggled to enjoy the imitation mid-century British detective banter as compared to the actual vintage version, but it did have amusing lines. I will say, though, that it was refreshing to follow an inspector who genuinely show more has to muddle it all through instead of being an insta-genius and while I might not be eager to reread the style of the book, I will say that the characters were fun enough that I may pick up the sequel next Christmas. Who knows? show less