February's Son
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4.2 • 20 Ratings
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the Edgar Award: “McCoy is so noir he makes most other Scottish cops seem light grey.” —The Times
An up-and-coming footballer has met an untimely end—and in a spectacularly gruesome fashion, topped off with the words Bye Bye carved into his chest. Harry McCoy knows this kind of violence indicates a personal, passionate motive, and since the footballer’s future father-in-law is a notorious local gangster, that’s where Harry starts his investigation. The case will take him into the seamy, drug-drenched underworld of 1970s Glasgow, and into his own dark childhood memories, in this intense crime thriller from Alan Parks, considered in “the top class of Scottish noir authors” (The Times).
“Dissects a city where cops and crooks depend on one another to maintain order.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Riveting . . . The macabre and morally ambivalent February’s Son is not one that will be quickly or easily forgotten.” —The National
“McCoy's Glasgow is a dark, brooding city, where the line between the police and the underworld is frequently blurred.” —Herald
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Glasgow in 1973, Parks's serviceable sequel to 2018's Bloody January finds morally conflicted Det. Harry McCoy back on duty after having been declared psychologically fit for his part in pushing a man off a roof to his death. His ability to stomach gruesome crime scenes is tested immediately when he's called to the scene of the horrific murder of celebrity footballer Charlie Jackson. Jackson was found shot, with one eye removed, his severed penis stuffed into his mouth, and the words BYE BYE carved into his chest. The sports star was engaged to Elaine Scobie, whose father, Jake, is a powerful local gangster. The nature of the mutilations suggests a personal motive, and McCoy pursues the theory that Jake ordered that Jackson be butchered for cheating on his daughter. That angle leads to a hunt for Jake's main hit man, Kevin Connolly. A chance discovery reawakens a childhood trauma for McCoy, which complicates the murder inquiry. While the streets of Parks's Glasgow are certainly mean, he offers little that hard-boiled fans haven't seen before.
