The Sudden Arrival of Violence
Malcolm Mackay
16 January 2014
9780230764699256 pages
Synopsis
It begins with two deaths: a money-man and a grass. Deaths that offer a unique opportunity to a man like Calum MacLean. A man who has finally had enough of killing.
Meanwhile two of Glasgow's biggest criminal organizations are at quiet, deadly war with one another. And as Detective Michael Fisher knows, the biggest – and bloodiest – manoeuvres are yet to come . . .
The stunning conclusion to Malcolm Mackay's lauded Glasgow Trilogy, The Sudden Arrival of Violence will return readers to the city's underworld: a place of dark motives, dangerous allegiances and inescapable violence . . .
Superb . . . Mackay is a true original, managing to conjure up a gripping new way of portraying city-noir. This, from a writer who has lived his whole life in far-off Stornoway, with only few short visits to the Glasgow he has so vividly created. He's no longer a rising star. He's risenMarcel Berlins, The Times
Reviewers often groan at the hyperbole with which publishers adorn new novels, but with Malcolm Mackay it is justified. His poetic titles (The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter and How a Gunman Says Goodbye) are infused with the sense of menace that is the sine qua non of the genre while tipping the wink that this is crime writing with ambition. The Sudden Arrival of Violence is the conclusion to Mackay's acclaimed Glasgow trilogy . . . The youthful Mackay has the command of a writer twice his age, and he has delivered a conclusion to his trilogy that is just as cohesive and forceful as his previous two books.Financial Times
The final novel in Malcolm MacKay's wonderful Glasgow trilogy . . . Gripping and vivid, with a labyrinthine plot involving double - and triple-crossing, The Sudden Arrival of Violence is told in a staccato, abbreviated style throughout. It's very difficult to keep this up, let alone do it well, but MacKay succeeds magnificently, and his third novel is well up to the high standard of its predecessorsGuardian
