From time to time, Laidlaw gets to make his views known directly, as he engages with Harkness in lively debates about the role of the policeman in society, about ethics and about personal responsibility. The trouble was, it occurred to her, that with him you never knew whether you were the maiden or the dragon. Lynch approached McIlvanney’s publisher Canongate to see if they could do anything with it, and the publisher asked Rankin if he would be interested in finishing it. This technology can be used for many things, such as studio recordings of music, band practices across several rooms, live streaming and podcasts.

In fact, it wasn’t until after I’d read this book that I discovered the truth: that Ian Rankin had fairly recently been approached to complete a half written draft of what turns out to be a prequel from a very well know trilogy. In Glasgow, the city with the worst slums in Europe, a city of hard men, powerful villains, bitter victims and cynical policemen, Laidlaw uses unconventional methods.In 1977 William McIlvanney came out with Laidlaw, the first in a trilogy featuring Glasgow copper Jack Laidlaw. Now, I’ll have to read one of the original Laidlaw novels written by William McIlvanney to see if he also employed this style. William Mcilvanney, escritor escocés fallecido en 2015 se hizo célebre escribiendo novela negra ambientada en Glasgow en los años 70. Or rather, a venally clever lawyer who didn’t so much rub shoulders with criminals as steep in the same polluted bath water as them. This is a republication of a 1977 book, the first in the Laidlaw series and I’m not sure as a crime fiction fan how I’ve missed this series!

Laidlaw non smentisce il suo cognome: è un poliziotto che "spiana" la legge, la semplifica, la adatta al suo modo di agire, vivendo ogni caso di cui si occupa come se fosse un fatto personale. It is great entertainment, but McIlvanney's achievement is to transcend the conventions of the crime novel even while he observes them.

He asked McIlvanney to sign one of his books for him, and told him he was writing his own novel that was “like Laidlaw but set in Edinburgh”.

Para aquel que haya leído “Irene” de Pierre Lemaitre igual se acuerda que esta novela está presente en la obra de Lemaitre. I think some of this will be lost on younger readers but I don’t see this as a significant drawback.William McIlvanney’s writing is just superb; almost poetic sometimes and always remarkably evocative. A private man, Laidlaw is the subject of speculation among other officers, to which Laidlaw pays no heed. His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. There are nice touches of wry humour which provides a contrast to the bleak story and to some of the harshest characters and there’s very realistic and colourful dialogue between them. It’s notes towards a book, a few scenes, some central characters, a sense of what the story might actually be about, but fairly incomplete,” said Rankin.