The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy #1)

by Malcolm Mackay

Overview

It's easy to kill a man. It's hard to kill a man well.

A twenty-nine-year-old man lives alone in his Glasgow flat. The telephone rings; a casual conversation, but behind this a job offer. The clues are there if you know to look for them. He is an expert. A loner. Freelance. Another job is another job, but what if this organization wants more?

A meeting at a club. An offer. A target: Lewis Winter, a necessary sacrifice that will be only the first step in an all-out war between crime syndicates the likes of which hasn't been seen for decades. It's easy to kill a man. It's hard to kill a man well. People who do it well know this. People who do it badly find out the hard way. The hard way has consequences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316337281
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Series:	Glasgow Trilogy Series , #1
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Malcolm Mackay's Glasgow Trilogy has been nominated for several international prizes. The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter was shortlisted for the Edgar Awards' Best Paperback Original, the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. How a Gunman Says Goodbye won the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award. Mackay was born in Stornoway on Scotland's Isle of Lewis, where he still lives.

Editorial Reviews

02/16/2015
British author Mackay makes his U.S. debut with the dark first in his Glasgow trilogy. A powerful Glasgow boss, Peter Jamieson, hires Calum MacLean, a freelance hit man, to take out Lewis Winter, a smalltime drug dealer who has stepped on some dangerous toes. While 29-year-old Calum is a familiar type, a tough loner with few meaningful human connections, Mackay makes him oddly sympathetic. All the characters, from a police detective investigating a murder to Winter’s opportunistic girlfriend, come across as three-dimensional. The author also does a good job de-romanticizing the life of the hit man, capturing the dullness of Calum’s days as he goes through his preparations for the job. Understated dialogue shows that the characters know how to read what is not said, as well as what is said. Mackay doesn’t break any new ground, but tartan noir fans will be satisfied. Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Company. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"[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

"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

"Exhilarating, canny and strikingly original ... Mackay is less interested in violence than in the insides of his vivid characters' heads, including those of a police detective and the sad-sack victim. Darting seamlessly in and out of those heads, Mackay reveals their thoughts (sometimes dumb, sometimes shrewd) as they jockey for position in a complex power struggle. Remarkable."—Adam Woog, Seattle Times

"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

"A quietly absorbing gangland tale, full of moral ambiguities."—The Times

"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)

"Tartan noir fans will be satisfied."—Publishers Weekly

"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

"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

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2015
Already a hit in Britain, this first installment in Mackay's "Glasgow Trilogy"—Mulholland is publishing the second and third volumes, How a Gunman Says Goodbye and The Sudden Arrival of Violence, simultaneously—is a welcome, hard-hitting addition to the tartan noir genre. In the violent criminal underworld of Glasgow, it's imperative to know your place and stay there. Otherwise you might find yourself on the wrong side of a man like Calum MacLean. A freelance killer of sorts, he's currently working for the powerful Peter Jamieson, tasked with taking out the titular Lewis Winter, a small-time drug dealer who's usurping Jamieson's turf. Unlike a typical whodunit, the story features a killer whose identity is never in question. But Mackay ratchets up the suspense by introducing a wide cast of characters, from the cool, detached MacLean and the surprisingly sympathetic Winter trying to please his gold digger girlfriend to the cops, both straight and dirty, tasked with investigating the murder. VERDICT To loosely paraphrase Mackay (and Raymond Chandler), 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. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/14.]

Library Journal