Glasgow, 1953. Lennox, an expatriate Canadian in Scotland, is a private investigator skimming the edges of the underworld. Not that he doesn’t try to have standards: he declines the opportunity to take on the case of mobster Tam McGahern’s death, even when Tam’s brother Frankie is the one attempting to “persuade” him. But the case gets him in his clutches, and he finds himself embroiled in the affairs of all three of the Three Kings who run Glasgow’s criminal classes.

I picked this up for the setting; books set in Glasgow are catnip for me. Even better is the fact that Lennox is Canadian, a Kennebecasis kid, hailing from New Brunswick. This combination of setting and character is a winning one. Lennox has a few personal struggles: physical and mental injuries from the Second World War have left him a very different person, one whom he finds occasionally repulsive. For this reason I liken this series somewhat to Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer books, although this one is definitely more violent, or at least more squishily violent.

Recommended if you like hardboiled detective novels set or written in the first half of the 20th century, or if you like Scottish noir. ( )

Ian Rankin and now Craig Russell. Are there any more scottish writers of quality that I should be aware of...?
I'm quite partial to good noir storytelling. And this a good example of this. Neo-noir?
It's always more difficult to sustain a tale told in the first person narrative, with everything that it implies. And Russell comes off at the end in flying colours.
The sense of place, the gloom and the ever-present outfall from a brutal war (WWII) is palpable. All noir settings are there: rapid-fire dialogue, lone-wolf investigator, hardboiled ice princesses, perpetual rain and fog... Boogey could play the Lennox character :)
What kept me turning the pages was not the many twists and turns, but Russell’s characters. The dialog is quite up to the mark. ( )

An introduction to the series telling about a Canadian ex-soldier who is making a living in 1950's Glasgow.
The "Three Kings" of the Glasgow underworld hire him to investigate the murder of two up and coming thugs. He also does another investigation on the side, that gets very complicated, as does the story of the two murders.
Someone tries to set him up and the Glasgow police of the time have a very "hands on" approach to interrogation.
Grim, atmospheric and well written. Also very well narrated. ( )

Bri8lliant, very atmospheric of the 1950's. Just loved the character, Lennox. ( )

Glasgow in the 1950’s was a very tough place to be, yet Lennox, ex-Canadian though he may be, appears to be completely comfortable on it’s gritty, smog draped streets. As a slightly shady investigator, he is able to move among both the city’s gangsters and the police, but always as an associate, never as a friend.

When the first, McGahern twin, Tam, is murdered, Lennox had only a casual interest in the story. Then one evening the other twin, Frank, approaches him for help, but, not wanting to get involved, Lennox rebuffs him. There is a confrontation which the police have to break up. Later that night, Frank is also murdered, putting Lennox right in the frame. He realizes that in order to clear himself from suspicion he must search for the real murderer and the reason these two lesser gangsters were snuffed out.

Lennox is a atmospheric, tartan noir that Craig Russell fills with all the right ingredients. Lead by the tough wise-cracking anti-hero, this is a story filled with violence, hard-boiled characters - both male and female, and the dark, brooding presence of Glasgow with it’s working class environment of shipyards and steel mills. Dark, intense and well plotted, Lennox is a great start to this new series. ( )