- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Magna Large Print Books; Large type edition edition (November 1986)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0860099997
- ISBN-13: 978-0860099994
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Auspicious is the word for this Scottish poet-novelist's debut as a police-procedural craftsman. Laidlaw's the detective - abrasive, literate, angrily compassionate - and his turf is Glasgow, any town's rival for drear-dankness, enervated poverty, and slick newness layered on decaying oldness. A girl's been abused and murdered, and Laidlaw had better find the culprit - a sexually confused adolescent - before the victim's father or a bookie biggie (afraid of what the fugitive might spill about his crooked set-up) lay hands on him. Notwithstanding an excess of metaphor (Laidlaw talks of people spending their "lives doing a Cook's Tour of their own reality"), McIlvanney's mix of just enough dialect, just enough pathos, and just-right pacing puts him immediately in a class with the Marrics, McBains, and Scandinavians who turn streets into cityscapes and uniforms into people. (Kirkus Reviews )
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
The titles in the "Textplus" series, designed to reflect the changing nature of English Literature at advanced post-GCSE level, offer the complete text with a specially commissioned introduction and compact background notes placing the work in historical and critical context. Together, these components are intended to open up the text for students, allowing them to plot their own course of study, to plan extended projects, to compare writers' perspectives on similar themes and to relate works to key social and historical phenomena.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of Scottish Wit,
By Bill Ross (Vernon, B.C) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Laidlaw (Mass Market Paperback)
William McIlvanney presents this fictional narrative with a character so intelligently devised that it makes one wonder if its author is really Laidlaw. Laidlaw is a character that is great to follow throughout the book and leads the reader along as Watson did with Sherlock. The crime is murder. Murder of a young woman with a questionable past and Laidlaw manouvers his way through the inner societal workings of a Glasgow city to find the answers to the mystery of her untimely death. It's a great read, I highly recommend it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Gift of The Gab,
By c (vernon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Laidlaw (Mass Market Paperback)
McIlvanney's style of writing is slick. Laidlaw is the only one of this author's titles that I have read so far; and I have been duely impressed. The book follows an uncommon line of delivery. Instead of the usual who dunnit detective novel, Laidlaw is a why dunnit story. McIlvanney's approach is refreshing, and prevents the book from being mistaken for another dimestore paperback lacking intrigue.McIlvanney's Laidlaw needs no ambassador for its content. I agree with anyone who raves about this book. I question the integrity and reading capacity of anyone who does not find favour with this McIlvanney piece. I cannot resist sharing my personal favorite aspect of Laidlaw. The way in which McIlvanney demonstrates his intimate relation to the characters he depicts, and intricate knowledge of how people think, and live, through his amazing usage of prose, left me thrilled, even agape. McIlvanney's writing kicks ass. He has the gift of the calligraphic gab which allows readers a vicariously Scottish experience that can be superimposed on any human experience.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breaking the mystery mould,
By CF (vernon bc) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Laidlaw (Mass Market Paperback)
The story of Inspector Laidlaw and the complex murder investigation into a seemingly innocent young adults slaying, is one of many enthralling twists and turns which grasp and keep the readers attention until the very end. As an aspiring detective, I was interested in the strong morality of Laidlaw, and the compassion he felt for the "innocent until proven guilty".The over twenty characters carefully articulated throughout Laidlaw prove most useful in representing the cheerless heart of urban Glasgow and its shady “underground” inhabitants. Most notably the depiction of women is not for the faint of heart. While McIlvanney displays women as adherent to their husband’s abuses and neglect, one cannot forget that without the strong negative depiction of women (such as Bud Lawson and Inspector Laidlaw’s wives) the reader would lack a sense of severity and compassion for characters such as Bud Lawson and Inspector Laidlaw. William McIlvanney's Laidlaw, is able to tear down stereotypic views of a murder mystery "who done it" and replace it with a more complex psychological thriller "who done it? why? and what caused them to do it?" A definite must read for the literate and a great book to detour young girls from going to bars.
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