In this scorching prequel, New York Times best-selling author Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of DC Jack Laidlaw, Glasgow's original gritty detective. Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong kind of people. When his body is found in an alley behind a pub that is known to be under the protective wing of a local crime boss, the fragile equilibrium that has been keeping Glasgow relatively safe for months is shattered. Besides a distraught family and any number of powerful friends, Carter has left behind his fair share of enemies. So who is responsible for his death? DC Jack Laidlaw's reputation precedes him. He's not a team player, but he's got a sixth sense for what's happening on the streets. His boss chalks Carter's death up to the usual rivalries, but Laidlaw knows it can't be that simple. As two Glasgow gangs go to war, he needs to find Carter's killer before the...

Tam Docherty's youngest son, Conn, is born at the end of 1903 in a small working-class town in the west of Scotland. Tam will stop at nothing to make sure that life and the pits don't swallow up his boy, the way it did him. Courageous and questioning, Docherty emerges as a leader of almost unshakable strength, but in a close-knit community tradition is a powerful opponent.

Eddie Cameron is a salesman for Rocklight Ltd., an electrical equipment firm in Glasgow, where he has been fiddling the firm's expenses. Eddie's life is in tatters - his wife hates him, and his violent temper has left his mistress teetering on the edge of sanity.

These are the stories of the casualties of social and emotional struggle, who defy defeat with humour, resilience and inspiring faith in their dreams. The walking wounded. These are the stories of ordinary people.

In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a residential weekend. The weekend proves to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people - just not quite in the way any of them expected.

Winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial PrizeCharlie Grant, an intense young student at Glasgow University watches his father die. Overwhelmed by the memory of this humble yet dignified death, Charlie is left to face his own fierce resentment for his adulterous mother. With shades of Hamlet and Camus, William McIlvanney's first novel is a revelatory portrait of youth, of society and of family.

As Seen in the Motion Picture Starring Liam NeesonThe big man is Dan Scoular, a legend of physical prowess in a decaying Ayrshire mining community. When a bare-knuckle fight offers both money and a purpose, he finds it turns into a monumental struggle to keep his heritage and integrity intact.

When his brother dies stepping out in front of a car, Detective Jack Laidlaw is determined to find out what really happened. With corrosive wit, Laidlaw relates an emotional quest through Glasgow's underworld, and into the past. He discovers as much about himself as the loved brother he has lost, in a search which leads to a shattering climax.

Meet Jack Laidlaw, the original damaged detective. When a young woman is found brutally murdered on Glasgow Green, only Laidlaw stands a chance of finding her murderer from among the hard men, gangland villains and self-made moneymen who lurk in the city's shadows.WINNER OF THE CWA SILVER DAGGER

Eck Adamson, an alcoholic vagrant, summons Jack Laidlaw to his deathbed. Probably the only policeman in Glasgow who would bother to respond, Laidlaw sees in Eck's cryptic last message a clue to the murder of a gangland thug and the disappearance of a student. With stubborn integrity, Laidlaw tracks a seam of corruption that runs from the top to the bottom of society.

Tom Docherty was seventeen in the summer of 1955. With school behind him and a summer job at a brick works, Tom had his whole life before him. Years later, alone in a rented flat in Edinburgh and lost in memories, Tom recalls the intellectual and sexual awakening of his youth. In looking back, Tom discovers that only by understanding where he comes from can he make sense of his life as it is now.