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Harry McCoy #4
by Alan Parks
When an American sailor from the Holy Loch Base goes missing, Harry McCoy is determined to find him. But as he investigates, a wave of bombings hits Glasgow.
Soon McCoy realises that the sailor may be part of a shadowy organization led by a dangerous fanatic and committed to a very different kind of Scotland. A Scotland its members are prepared to kill for.
Meanwhile Cooper, McCoy's long-time criminal friend, is released from jail and is convinced he has a traitor in his midst. As allies become enemies, Cooper has to fight to maintain his position as crime kingpin. He needs something done, something illegal, and his old friend McCoy is the only one who can do it.
As word begins to circulate on the streets that another, bigger explosion is being planned for Glasgow, McCoy battles corruption in his ranks in an attempt to save the city for which he is the perfect noir hero.
"[O]utstanding...Tightly plotted and fast-moving, this well-wrought historical thriller also highlights Parks's keen analysis of Scotland's societal traumas, in particular the failure to cope with domestic violence and child abuse. Tartan noir fans won't want to miss this one." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The pace is deliberate, but the lean, muscular prose is matched by a deep dive into character and the seamy side of the city... A full-bodied immersion into Glasgow's gritty past." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about The April Dead was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Before beginning his writing career, Alan Parks was Creative Director at London Records and Warner Music, where he marketed and managed artists including All Saints, New Order, The Streets, Gnarls Barkley, and Cee Lo Green. His love of music, musician lore, and even the industry, comes through in his prize-winning mysteries, which are saturated with the atmosphere of the 1970s music scene, grubby and drug-addled as it often was.
Parks' debut novel, Bloody January, propelled him onto the international literary crime fiction circuit and won him praise, prizes, and success with readers. The second book in the Harry McCoy series, February's Son, was a finalist for an MWA Edgar Award. Parks was born in Scotland, earned an M.A. in Moral Philosophy from the University of Glasgow, and still lives and works in the city he so vividly depicts in his Harry McCoy thrillers.
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