For Those Who Know the Ending

A Czech gunman and a would-be gangster find themselves on the wrong side of Glasgow's biggest crime organization, in Malcolm Mackay's newest gritty noir.

Martin Sivok doesn't immediately remember how he came to be tied to a folding chair in a deserted warehouse. As he waits to face his fate, he fights the mother of all headaches, gradually reconstructs the events that brought him to this point, and eventually identifies just where it all went wrong.

The wrong turn started with Usman Kassar, the nervous, goofy younger son of a Pakistani family, who's running every scheme he can think of to prove himself to the Jamieson organization. Usman offers Martin his first opportunity for a serious payday, so even though the old pro isn't too eager to work with the nervous kid, the significant take and the straightforward job make it tough to refuse. They manage to get away with the money, but not without first cracking some heads--including the head of Jamieson's head of security Nate Colgan.

Which leads us back to that empty warehouse, and Martin on the chair....

Malcolm Mackay captures the character of Glasgow and its inhabitants in sharp, precise prose, an "elegant stylist" unmatched by another others in contemporary noir fiction (Chicago Tribune).