The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter: 1 (Glasgow Trilogy) - Softcover

"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

"[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 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.