Glasgow in the 1970s this is a brilliant Scottish noir crime thriller that portrays that time brilliantly.
It is the second book in this series and personally i wish i had read the first book Bloody January first but it was still a great read and i will be looking out for further books by Alan Parks. ( )

February’s Son by Alan Parks is the second book in his police procedural series featuring Detective Harry McCoy. Set in Glasgow during 1973, the story is both about a current set of grisly murders and about Harry McCoy’s troubled life – past and present. The mutilated bodies are the work of a well known gangster who appears to have gone off his meds and is spiralling downwards. Meanwhile Harry’s childhood best friend, Stevie Cooper, is competing for control of Glasgow’s underworld and also appears to know more about the murders than he should. Then when a ghost from their past shows up, they feel that they must finally retaliate.

There is a lot going on in this book and the stories entwine and overlap but the author keeps control and delivers a harsh yet engrossing story. Harry is carrying a lot of pain around with him and he often counteracts his feelings with drugs and alcohol. He is far from perfect, but he does his best to stay on the right side of the law most of the time.

I have enjoyed the first two books of this series and am looking forward to continuing on reading about Harry and his workmates and friends in the future. ( )

Wow! Even better than the first book in the series!
Early 70’s, miserable winter in Glasgow, detective Harry McCoy is tracking a serial killer who is deeply disturbed , and Scotland’s miserable history of abuse at orphanages/Boys homes a situation he is all too familiar with.
This is a gritty dark book be a hell of a story from a excellent author. ( )

Over recent years, Scottish Noir has become established as a major genre within crime fiction, and the works of Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride and Val McDermid have become bestsellers all around the world. All three of those authors have favoured dark crimes committed against grisly settings, investigated by stalwart and pragmatic cops who are prepared to cross the customary lines of propriety and fair play in order to secure a result.

Harry McCoy, protagonist of Alan Parks’ debut novel Bloody January, is another decidedly gritty detective who makes John Rebus or Logan McRae seem like Dixon of Dock Green. This book represents his second outing, following on year’s Bloody January, and transports us back to Glasgow in 1973, a city riven by crime where sectarian loyalties strike deeper and harder than anywhere else on mainland Britain.

This novel picks up more or less where its predecessor left off, with McCoy returning to work after recovering from the injuries sustained at the end of the previous story. On his first day back, he is summoned to the top floor of a half-built tower block, where a corpse has been discovered. It is immediately clear that the victim had been tortured before being killed. It is equally clear that he is a successful footballer who had established himself as a regular in the Celtic side. As if that were not enough of a problem for the police, the dead footballer was also the fiancé of the daughter of the city’s most powerful crime supremo.

McCoy sometimes seems almost to be fighting the wintry city itself, and the cold seemed to seep out of the book and engulf me as I read it. It has become rather a cliché now for fictional detectives to be at least as troubled as the criminals and victims among whom they function. McCoy is no exception, and he has enough emotional baggage to fill a freight wagon. It is also clear that he might struggle as much to spell ‘unassailable rectitude’ as he would to display it. His woes and angst are all too plausible, however, and his off-duty hours are spent drinking heavily, downing speed and consorting with prostitutes in a relentless cycle of dissolution.

At the most basic level, the plot is grim, the setting is bleak and the characters are, for the most part, ghastly. The book is, however, utterly compelling. Parks has a straightforward style that snags the reader’s attention from the start, and won’t let go. ( )

Once again I would like to thank the Author publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this excellent book to read and honestly review.
This is the second book in this series, but while there are several references to previous cases this in no way spoilt my enjoyment of a very good book, and can be read standalone as was the case with me. Set in Glasgow in the seventies this book is at times a grim read, i expect the Author is certainly not popular with Glasgow tourist board. However it's a well written descriptive and entertaining book from first to last page, difficult to put down and I for one will look out for more books from this clever writer.
WARNING : This book features very strong language and there is some graphic violence, which some readers may find disturbing.This
Totally recommended. ( )