I have enjoyed this series and I think The April Dead is the best so far.
It is April 1974 and Harry McCoy is investigating some bombings in Glasgow which seem to be the work of an amateur. He is also approached by an American who is concerned about his son, based with the US Navy at Holy Loch, who has disappeared. A connection seems to appear and some very dark secrets begin to be revealed involving secret militias, rogue elements of the British Army in Northern Ireland and elsewhere and, of course, McCoy’s childhood friend and now leading crime boss, Stevie Cooper.
It’s all very well done. It is extremely disturbing in places, but helped by the fact that it is now April and isn’t cold, wet and dark all the time, so it’s not quite so unremittingly gloomy. I even laughed once at the dialogue. Alan Parks develops an excellent sense of time and place as always and the plot is very well paced so I was involved and carried along very nicely. The character development of McCoy, Cooper, Wattie and others is well done, too. There are some unlikely coincidences and other implausibilities, but they’re not too outrageous and it was easy to forgive them for the sake of the story. I was a little unhappy with the climax and the brief coda, both of which stretched credibility a bit too far for me and seemed to be setting things up for future books in a way that looks more like a sensational novel than any sort of period realism. I’ll definitely read the next one, though.
So, not quite a five-star read for me, but not far off it. Be aware that this is not for the faint of heart in places, but I can recommend it (and the earlier books) warmly.
(My thanks to Canongate for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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