In this scorching crime hook-up, number one bestseller Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of DI Laidlaw, Glasgow's original gritty detectiveTwo maestros for the price of one! All fans of quality crime fiction are in for a rare treat. McIlvanney and Rankin at the very height of their powers
Fantastic - like witnessing Scottish noir's Big Bang creation in the company of its greatest living exponent
McIlvanney and Rankin are the dream team. To have Rankin completing an unfinished McIlvanney novel is a crime fiction fan's dream come true
The journey through 1970s Glasgow, its grotty tenements and genteel suburbs, makes for a gripping and atmospheric novel
Absolutely brilliant. I was excited by this partnership the moment I heard it was happening, and it absolutely lives up to expectation.
The Dark Remains is a triumph
The personality of the tough, intelligent Laidlaw leaps off the page as readily as it did in the first novel that bore his name
Mean, moody and menacing. Perfect synchronicity from two of the best crime writers of our time
Two legends of Scottish crime fiction blended like a deluxe whisky
[Rankin's] dialogue has the same spiky wit [as McIlvanney's], he adjusts to gangster-ridden Glasgow with aplomb, and the deft period context - politics, pop, telly, football, booze brands, language, family and marital mores etc - is the most compelling reason to read the book besides its charismatic existentialist sleuth
By turns cynical, hardboiled and philosophical, Jack Laidlaw is the quintessential crime fiction protagonist, and Ian Rankin delivers a wholly satisfactory homage
William McIlvanney is the author of the award-winning Laidlaw trilogy, featuring Glasgow's original maverick detective. Both Laidlaw and The Papers of Tony Veitch gained Silver Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association, while the third in the series, Strange Loyalties, won the Glasgow Herald's People's Prize. He died in December 2015.
Ian Rankin is the number one bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus series. The Rebus books have been translated into thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards, including the prestigious Diamond Dagger, and in 2002 he received an OBE for services to literature. He lives in Edinburgh. @beathhigh | ianrankin.net