Set in 1972 Glasgow, Scotland, this smoothly written prequel to McIlvanney's Laidlaw (1977) was completed by bestseller Rankin (the John Rebus series) from an unfinished manuscript by Edgar finalist McIlvanney (1936--2015). When a local mob lawyer is stabbed to death, everyone, including the lawyer's underworld boss and Jack Laidlaw, newly recruited to the Glasgow Crime Squad, wants to find out who did it. The police are mostly concerned about keeping the peace between rival gangs, but Laidlaw's focus is on where the case began, "a much thornier question." Of more appeal than the meandering plot and the predictable denouement is the portrayal of the mean streets of Glasgow, rife with "poverty, loveless marriages, drunken aggression, sectarian bile, like angry tattoos hidden under a laundered shirt." At first blush, Laidlaw, regarded by his colleagues as "a one-off in a world of mass production," is a classic tough loner of a cop, but he surprises the reader at every turn, showing himself to be literate, intelligent, and thoughtful. McIlvanney's fans will relish this gritty early perspective on Laidlaw. (Sept.)

A prequel to the Dagger Award-winning Laidlaw trilogy by the late McIlvanney, whose widow passed along the unfinished manuscript to Rankin to complete. Set in 1972, this gritty crime novel probes the inner character of detective inspector Jack Laidlaw, who has just been assigned to the Glasgow Crime Squad. He's gotten a reputation for his uncanny sense of the streets, but he's not a team player. When Bobby Carter (lawyer and right-hand man to the mob boss Cam Colvin) goes missing and then turns up dead behind a pub in John Rhodes's territory, Glasgow could go up in flames. Colvin controls a third of the city, Rhodes another third. When Laidlaw learns which police supervisor is in charge of the investigation into Carter's murder, he goes rogue. He's not afraid to confront gang leaders or their men in his quest for answers. Laidlaw might not go home at night or show up at the police station in the morning, but he'll discover a surprising truth that could prevent Glasgow gangs from going to war. VERDICT An essential purchase to complete crime fiction collections or where international police novels are popular.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Rankin, the creator of Edinburgh DI John Rebus, returns to complete an unfinished prequel to the Jack Laidlaw trilogy by the late McIlvanney, the founding father of Tartan Noir. It's no great surprise when Conn Feeney recognizes the corpse found stabbed to death behind his pub, The Parlour, as that of Bobby Carter. The money-laundering specialist who put the criminal in criminal attorney had been reported missing days earlier by his hard-used wife, Monica, and the clients he advised weren't the type to let him slip quietly away. To complicate matters, Carter was known to be friendly with a long line of ladies extending most recently to exotic dancer Jenni Love, who insists that their affair had ended, and Cam Colvin, the crime boss who owned Carter and a whole lot of lesser fry, is facing a serious turf challenge from rival gang leader John Rhodes. So it's the perfect time for DC Laidlaw to bring his signature mix of expertise and attitude to Glasgow's Central Division. The world McIlvanney and Rankin create--there's no indication of who wrote what, and readers will be hard-pressed to tell--is deliciously fluid in its conflicts. Gangs fight gangs, bosses threaten their underlings, informants sell out their former intimates, husbands and wives squabble over their betrayals, and Laidlaw makes no secret of his withering contempt for DI Ernie Milligan, the incompetent who's inexplicably been put in charge of the case. The solution is as readily foreseen, unless you're Milligan, and as deeply satisfying as the final lines of a prayer. A precious chance to spend a few more hours with a franchise that ended much too soon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

McIlvanney has long been considered the godfather of Tartan noir, and his three Jack Laidlaw novels, set in 1970s Glasgow, are mentioned by such current stars of the genre as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, and Denise Mina as key influences. Now, in a rare treat for crime-fiction fans, Rankin has finished a fourth Laidlaw novel, working from a handwritten manuscript found by McIlvanney's widow, after the writer's death in 2015. A prequel to the series, the book portrays Laidlaw establishing himself as a maverick cop who wouldn't follow a rule even if it was holding a gun to his head. The murder of mob lawyer Bobby Carter has sparked a gang war on Glasgow's mean streets, and Laidlaw's superiors, especially the preternaturally dim Milligan, are happy to let the gangs thin each other's herd rather than try to solve the crime. Not so Laidlaw, who pinches and prods the various combatants on his way to the truth. McIlvanney's gift for evoking the bruised humanity in Glasgow's underclass will remind readers not only of Rankin and his Scottish contemporaries, but also of Englishman John Harvey and, across the pond, Michael Connelly. And, certainly, you can find something of Laidlaw in Rankin's John Rebus, Connelly's Harry Bosch, and countless other hard-bitten coppers who would surely agree with Laidlaw, who, after being accused of being a bastard by a weaselly lowlife, retorts, "At least I'm a bastard with a glimmer of self-awareness."