Where the Dead Men Go by Liam McIlvanney Review

Title: Where the Dead Men Go

Author: Liam McIlvanney

My Rating: 4.5/5

Part of a series? Yes, this is the second book in the Conway Trilogy

Genre(s): Crime, Mystery, Glasgow, Journalism

Description/Blurb:

After three years in the wilderness, hardboiled reporter Gerry Conway is back at his desk at the Glasgow Tribune. But three years is a long time on newspapers and things have changed - readers are dwindling, budgets are tightening, and the Trib's once rigorous standards are slipping. Once the paper's star reporter, Conway now plays second fiddle to his former protégé, crime reporter Martin Moir. 

But when Moir goes AWOL as a big story breaks, Conway is dispatched to cover a gangland shooting. And when Moir's body turns up in a flooded quarry, Conway is drawn deeper into the city's criminal underworld as he looks for the truth about his colleague's death. Braving the hostility of gangsters, ambitious politicians and his own newspaper bosses, Conway discovers he still has what it takes to break a big story. But this is a story not everyone wants to hear as the city prepares to host the Commonwealth Games and the country gears up for a make-or-break referendum on independence. 

My review: 

I haven’t read the first book in this series which might be why I wasn't hooked straight away but I've got to say that this book really grew on me while I read it. For the first couple of chapters I kept wondering when the story was going to pick up pace but I grew to appreciate the pace of the story telling. The slower pace made the events feel more realistic, the main character/narrator Gerry is a journalist not a policeman so he doesn't have a team of people to help him make discoveries, and he doesn't have access to all of the details. He makes his discoveries slowly; a newspaper story that doesn't make sense, unusual phone numbers, a policeman who hears thing. The reader gets to feel the frustration that Gerry feels at the lack of progress, this helped me connect with Gerry, I could understand why he had to miss a few of his sons’ events, I could see why his marriage fell apart and what could happen to his current relationship without it needing to be spelt out in plain letters.

McIlvanney is quite heavy on the description in parts of this book which I know isn't to everybody’s taste, but as somebody who hasn't yet lived in Glasgow or even a city of a similar size for a reasonable length of time I found the detail helped me with getting to grips with elements of the plot and picturing the locations in my mind’s eye.

All in all this is decent crime novel, and I’d say this book is well worth a read, especially during a holiday or when you’re on a long journey, where you can appreciate the pacing of the plot. Although I haven’t read the first book of the trilogy yet I'm going to tentatively recommend reading it and working through the books as the character and story development were really quite enjoyable once I got into the book properly.