For my money, if you want to make a list of the best crime novels of 2018 that has any kind of legitimacy, then Liam McIlvanney’s sublime historical thriller The Quaker must be on it. Feted by critics and awards judges in several countries, the first DI Duncan McCormack tale was storytelling of the highest calibre: an extraordinary historical mystery inspired by the real-life Bible John killings that terrorised Glasgow in late 1960s.
Three and a half years on, we get a sequel. This time, completely pulled from McIlvanney’s imagination. Was it worth the wait? In short, heck yes. In The Heretic, McCormack has returned to Glasgow after a hiatus in London. Six years on from solving ‘the Quaker’ case, he’s a hero to some, hated by others. Alongside his Serious Crime Squad colleagues, he must deal with three puzzling cases: a deadly warehouse arson with gangland links, a mutilated body in a slum, and a shocking explosion in a local pub.
It’s an absorbing, layered tale – police procedural plus more – soaked in its mid-1970s setting. McIlvanney expertly brings us into the lives of his characters, and the times they live in. McCormack is an intriguing protagonist who has secrets of his own, and plenty of enemies among those that are meant to be his friends and colleagues. Another cracker.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liam McIlvanney was born in Scotland and studied at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. He has written for numerous publications, including the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian. His debut, Burns the Radical, won the Saltire First Book Award. His second novel, Where the Dead Men Go, won the 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best New Zealand Crime Novel. His most recent novel, The Quaker, won the 2018 McIlvanney Prize for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year. He is Stuart Professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He lives in Dunedin with his wife and four sons.
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