arrianne's review against another edition
5.0
I really loved this series; a detective series not like others. This time Laidlaw is investigating the accidental death of his brother which turns out to be entangled with various other lives both past and current.
It’s not a “look at the dazzling science of how we captured a criminal”, it’s much more about the why of the crime and the motivations and how really very uncomfortable Laidlaw is with being a police officer at all.
He is obviously the stereotypically wedded to his job maverick detective who drinks too much but gets the job done, but he’s also much more than that too.
It’s not a “look at the dazzling science of how we captured a criminal”, it’s much more about the why of the crime and the motivations and how really very uncomfortable Laidlaw is with being a police officer at all.
He is obviously the stereotypically wedded to his job maverick detective who drinks too much but gets the job done, but he’s also much more than that too.
zog_the_frog's review
3.0
I'd read "The papers of Tony Veitch" and "Laidlaw" many years ago and really enjoyed them. This I didn't enjoy so much. It's a very introspective book allegedly about the detective investigating his brother's death, but is more about the detective, Laidlaw investigating his own life. For me there were far too many characters in the book who were either not fleshed out enough or were merely background wallpaper for McIlvanney's writing. A lot of the writing I enjoyed although at time it became just too wordy. For literary content and pithy comments it gets 5 stars. For pure content as a story it gets 1 star. Average 3 stars
jw1949's review against another edition
4.0
I really like McIlvanney as a writer - the subject matter was not great but as I'm from Glasgow, the locations and the atmosphere were very familiar and friendly indeed.
arrianne's review against another edition
5.0
I really loved this series; a detective series not like others. This time Laidlaw is investigating the accidental death of his brother which turns out to be entangled with various other lives both past and current.
It’s not a “look at the dazzling science of how we captured a criminal”, it’s much more about the why of the crime and the motivations and how really very uncomfortable Laidlaw is with being a police officer at all.
He is obviously the stereotypically wedded to his job maverick detective who drinks too much but gets the job done, but he’s also much more than that too.
It’s not a “look at the dazzling science of how we captured a criminal”, it’s much more about the why of the crime and the motivations and how really very uncomfortable Laidlaw is with being a police officer at all.
He is obviously the stereotypically wedded to his job maverick detective who drinks too much but gets the job done, but he’s also much more than that too.
sarahr's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The last of the Laidlaw trilogy. Wonderful writing.
More...