Set in January 1973, this is a bleak story of detective Harry McCoy’s conflict with an influential family in Glasgow. Too much blood, gore, sex, drugs and alcohol. I had trouble warming to the story or any of the characters and won’t be picking up any others by the author. ( )

Excellent first outing. Glasgow Scotland in the early 70’s in winter sounds like a truly dreary dismal place.
A young girl is killed in broad daylight then the killer blows his head off.
Detective Harry McCoy is the inspector in charge. A man with quite a few demons of his own.
Can’t wait to order the 2nd book in the series.
The Scottish slang may be a bit of a challenge but nothing like an Irvine Welsh book. ( )

The concept of the series is a promising one: Glasgow in the 1970s. However, I am not fond of books that contain multiple sex scenes within the first 50 pages. I tried to keep going in spite of my misgivings, but by page 100 I am finding I’m not invested in the storyline. I’d rather just read about McCoy and Wattie eating Indian food at Shish Mahal.

This book did inspire me to finally pick up The Barlinnie Story, by Robert Jeffrey, which has been on my to-read list for a while, so that’s a plus. ( )

I was quite impressed with Bloody January by Alan Parks. This is a series debut set in 1973 Glasgow that features Detective Harry McCoy. In this outing, he goes up against a wealthy, powerful and corrupt family as he searches for the reason a young woman was gunned down on the street. As well as the murder investigation, the book highlights this as a time that heroin was becoming more readily available on the streets.

McCoy has plenty of issues which gives the author many different avenues to explore in future books. This story highlighted his childhood difficulties and his obligations to a well known Glasgow underworld boss that he struggles to withdraw from. Labelled as “Tartan Noir”, I found the book to be gritty and dark with a high body count and plenty of violence.

Bloody January is a bleak and atmospheric story about a flawed detective who has some difficulty staying on the right side of the law. The setting and timing are interesting and the plot moved quickly through the bars, slums and whorehouses of 1970s Glasgow. I am looking forward to continuing on with this series and learning more about Detective Harry McCoy. ( )

Grymt hård och rå historia. Både till handling och hur den är berättad. Korta koncisa meningar utan utsmyckningar. En riktig blandvändare i samma anda som de bästa i klassen (David Peace/James Ellroy). ( )