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“Glasgow’s a tough city and this is a tough book…very authentic, very gritty, you can really feel the streets. They call this genre Tartan Noir and absolutely The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is a first-class member of that.”
— Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“Remarkable. Mackay’s achievement is all the more stunning because drawing on his sublime imagination and innate empathy he has created a cast of characters so vivid—especially MacLean, who knows how hard it is to kill a man—that they live on in the memory long after the final page.”
— Daily Mail (London)
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“A quietly absorbing gangland tale, full of moral ambiguities.”
— Times (London)
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“A remarkably original debut…This is a book that it would be hard not to finish in one sitting…A wholly believable and unnerving portrait of organized crime.”
— Observer (London)
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“Tartan noir fans will be satisfied.”
— Publishers Weekly
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[Mackay's] Glasgow Trilogy is classic . . . The subject is organized crime, but it's the author's blunt eloquence that matters. Don't pick up a Mackay book unless you've got spare time. They're habit-forming.
— Janet Maslin, New York Times
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It's been a long time since so many pages went by so fast .... Mackay is a natural storyteller [with] a voice to which we're happy to surrender. Surprisingly rewarding .... a thriller trilogy that thrills.
— Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post
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Glasgow's a tough city and this is a tough book . . . very authentic, very gritty, you can really feel the streets. They call this genre Tartan Noir and absolutely The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is a first class member of that.
— Lee Child
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A quietly absorbing gangland tale, full of moral ambiguities.
— The Times
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A welcome, hard-hitting addition to the tartan noir genre . . . It's easy to write a crime novel; it's hard to write a crime novel well. And this unrelenting look at the grimy underbelly of Glasgow's criminal underworld does it very well.
— Library Journal (starred)
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Tartan noir fans will be satisfied.
— Publishers Weekly
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A remarkably original debut . . . this is a book that it would be hard not to finish in one sitting . . . a wholly believable and unnerving portrait of organised crime.
— Observer
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Remarkable. Mackay's achievement is all the more stunning because drawing on his sublime imagination and innate empathy he has created a cast of characters so vivid - especially MacLean, who knows how hard it is to kill a man - that they live on in the memory long after the final page.
— Daily Mail