Paisley-born author Andrew Raymond is the author of the Novak and Mitchell political thriller series, and the Duncan Grant spy thriller series. His new novel, The Bonnie Dead, is set in Glasgow joining the ranks of Tartan Noir hits. Here are some of his favourites.
Laidlaw by William McIlvanney
The godfather of Glasgow crime fiction. Laidlaw introduced the notion that a detective’s interior life was of equal interest to solving the case. It brought the concerns of French philosophy to the rain-soaked streets of Glasgow. Without McIlvanney, there is no Ian Rankin or Tartan Noir.
Bloody January by Alan Parks
Alan Parks’ Glasgow is bleak, brutal, and cinematic. Seamlessly blending 1970s grit with the swagger of hardboiled noir, he captures the city’s raw violence, corruption, and moral murk with razor-sharp authenticity.
The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
A genre-defying Gothic-noir that proves no city does dark like Glasgow. With a queer protagonist in Rilke and themes of obsession and hidden desire, it’s lyrical, unsettling and unlike anything else in the genre.
The Field of Blood by Denise Mina
Set in a gritty, male-dominated 1980s newsroom, this blends a trifecta of class struggle, gender politics and Catholic guilt into a gripping investigation of a child’s murder. Mina delivers both a sharp feminist take and a compulsive crime thriller in one.
The Quaker by Liam McIlvanney
Sons rarely live up to their literary fathers (Martin Amis aside) but Liam McIlvanney gets impressively close. Loosely based on the real-life Bible John case in Glasgow, this is a masterfully plotted murder mystery with a rare psychological depth for the genre.
