The Hidden Gems of Tartan Noir - Part Two
So lets pick up where we left off! Finding the hidden stars of Tartan Noir!
Denzil Meyrick - The DCI Daley series
Denzil’s series featuring DCI Daley now numbers seven, with the latest being ‘A Breath on Dying Embers’, which was published in July 2019.
‘Whiskey From Small Glasses’ (which was published in 2012) begins when Daley and his partner, DS Scott are sent to Kinloch to help solve the riddle of a woman’s body found floating in the harbour. Kinloch is most likely based on Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula.
When the body of a young woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the west coast of Scotland, D.C.I. Jim Daley is despatched from Glasgow to lead the investigation. Far from home, and his troubled marriage, it seems that Daley’s biggest obstacle will be managing the difficult local police chief; but when the prime suspect is gruesomely murdered, the inquiry begins to stall. As the body count rises, Daley uncovers a network of secrets and corruption in the close-knit community of Kinloch, thrusting him and his loved ones into the centre of a case more deadly than he had ever imagined.
The thing I enjoyed about these books is they are very character driven, especially the partnership between Daley and Scott. The third book, ‘Dark Suits and Sad Songs’, is probably best for the reader wanting to know more about the characters. Daley isn’t sure whether his new child is the product of his wife’s affair, he has an affair with a colleague and finally, there is that fact that Daley’s boss has been accused of corruption.
The fact that Denzil Meyrick worked for Strathclyde Police and also as a freelance journalist, allows him to bring all of his knowledge and skill to come together in a series of really good police procedurals.
I definitely recommend these!
Hania Allen - The Polish Detective
This is the first book to feature DS Dania Gorska who is based in Dundee, the second ‘Clearing the Dark’ was released this year and the third instalment is coming in January 2020. Hania’s series is a new find for myself, so I have only read ‘The Polish Detective’ so far, but I definitely enjoyed it enough to want to continue reading the series. The characters are really well developed and as a ‘remainer’ I love the novelty of an EU citizen being an detective and the commentary on this in the book is great.
Polish-born detective Dania Gorska, seconded to Dundee's Specialist Crime Division, is called to investigate three murders in which the bodies of the victims are posed in different ways; the first is dressed and staged as a scarecrow while the other two are displayed in an equally bizarre manner. She is unable to establish what links them but clues point to their having been members of a druidic cult - something which her investigative journalist brother Marek is pursuing for his paper.
Although Dania's main focus is in solving the murders, she finds herself increasingly drawn to the case of two runaway teenage girls. But when she learns that they were members of the same druid group, she becomes convinced that their disappearance is linked to the murders. And her growing suspicion that the local laird of Backmuir is involved puts her in grave danger...
I did think the clues throughout the books were not utilised to the best effect, it was clear who was involved and even the last chapter didn’t surprise me. However, for a debut novel the pluses far out weigh this and I am looking forward to carrying on with the series.
Lucy Foley - The Hunting Party
Now I know that this book has been promoted heavily this year and if you haven’t already read it you certainly will recognise the cover! Also, she isn’t a Scottish writer and this is the only one of her books that has been set in Scotland. Can this really be counted as Tartan Noir? In my opinion, yes! It is set in Scotland and it is a good book so why not!
All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.
They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.
Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?
Now I really enjoyed this book. Maybe it was because I was reading this whilst on the same type of trip - a holiday with friends in the Lake District and I was just so pleased that they were not like the characters in this book! It really does highlight how much your friends do change from the time you were all at uni and how friendships can falter if you don’t actually put the work in. Also, it felt like reading an updated book from the golden age of crime i.e. a locked door scenario but this time the locked room is a posh holiday estate surrounded by snow blocked roads and hills!
I can’t wait to read her next book - in fact Netgalley has provided an ARC. That’s my night sorted!
Alan Parks - Bloody January & February’s Son
Alan Park’s debut novel ‘Bloody January ‘was one of the top crime debuts of 2018 and was shortlisted for the prestigious international crime prize the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, which is quite the achievement for a first novel! His Glasgow roots shines through in these novels as Glasgow is as much a character as well as setting. There really is no where like it! He absolutely does bring 1970’s Glasgow and its ‘underground’ to life and chimes with all the stories I used to hear from my family.
When a teenage boy shoots a young woman dead in the middle of a busy Glasgow street and then commits suicide, Detective Harry McCoy is sure of one thing. It wasn't a random act of violence.
With his new partner in tow, McCoy uses his underworld network to lead the investigation but soon runs up against a secret society led by Glasgow's wealthiest family, the Dunlops.
McCoy's boss doesn't want him to investigate. The Dunlops seem untouchable. But McCoy has other ideas . . .
In a helter-skelter tale - winding from moneyed elite to hipster music groupies to the brutal gangs of the urban wasteland - Bloody January brings to life the dark underbelly of 1970s Glasgow
Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project
‘His Bloody Project’ was published in 2015 and was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2016 and this was how I found out about it actually. This is Burnet’s second novel and his other books, of which there are two, centre round the character Georges Gorski and are based in France.
In 1869, a brutal triple murder in the remote Wester Ross village of Culduie leads to the arrest of a seventeen-year-old crofter, Roderick Macrae. There is no question of Macrae’s guilt, but it falls to the country’s most eminent legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to his bloody deeds. Ultimately, the young man’s fate hinges on one key question: is he insane?
The story ingeniously unfolds through a series of found documents, including police statements; the accused’s prison memoir; the account of renowned psychiatrist, J. Bruce Thomson; and a report of the trial, compiled from contemporary newspapers.
I loved ‘His Bloody Project’ mostly due to its historical setting but mainly about the novel way it is presented. Sections of the book are memoirs, others case documents, newspaper articles etc. After about the first couple of chapters I actually had to google whether this was indeed a novel! This is not the type of book which makes a reader race through to the end, this is a thought-provoking slow read. Unless, you take your time you will miss vital clues.
There we go then! That’s my top 10 hidden gems of Tartan Noir!
There is a really good article about Tartan Noir by Val McDermid on CrimeReads which is worth a read - https://crimereads.com/val-mcdermid-on-the-remarkable-rise-of-tartan-noir/
Denzil Meyrick recently wrote an article in 'The Herald’ on this theme - https://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/18013045.denzil-meyrick-best-scottish-crime-writers-never-read/
If there is anyone you thinking I have missed please let me know in the comments!
