BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER

A rugged, righteous detective battles the rising tide of crime in 1970s Glasgow.

The unexpected death of a Glaswegian native son and minor rock star, while not central to the plot of Harry McCoy’s third procedural, looms over all as a shadow and a cautionary tale. The story of Beatkickers guitarist Bobby March, from his career beginnings in 1964 to his death from an overdose, is threaded through the book in short, italicized cuts, with a delightful coda. Nearly everyone McCoy meets seems moved by Bobby’s death and wants to commiserate over him. The city is equally obsessed with Alice Kelly, a missing little girl. McCoy is officially working on this case, but his boss, Chief Inspector Murray, gives him a special off-the-record assignment. Murray’s precocious niece, Laura, a frequent runaway, has gone missing again, this time at the probable instigation of her sketchy new boyfriend, Donny MacRae. When McCoy goes to Donny’s flat to question him, he finds the young man stabbed to death. Finding Laura soon afterward should be the end of the story but instead marks the beginning of a different investigation. In the meantime, a teenager is arrested for Alice Kelly’s kidnapping, but more twists follow in that storyline as well. Parks’ sprawling plot offers not tidy whodunit puzzles but a wide-angle view of a gritty city in the grip of crime, home to an entertaining cross section of characters. Broad-shouldered McCoy is suitably unflappable as he walks Glasgow’s mean streets.

Brisk Scottish noir with an appealingly hard edge.