This is the first in a historical crime series
It is a compelling with sick humour throughout
The mystery is written well

There's certainly a lot here for gritty crime lovers to enjoy. Much like Peaky Blinders, Robbie M gives us the demi-monde of a dirty city, a people left in the margins of respectable society - the backbone of British industrialisation - though here we have Glasgow in the 1930s rather than Birmingham. there's also a touch of the WW1 PTSD here too as characters here are young men, much like Tommy Shelby, left mentally (and physically) scarred by their experiences in the War. So, look, maybe lacking originality - or perhaps piggybacking off the success of similar stories elsewhere - but gripping enough in its own right.

These are the mean, violent streets of Glasgow in 1932. It’s a time when police officers like DI Jimmy Dreghorn and his man-mountain ex-Olympic wrestlerDS Archie McDaid get the results that are needed in the way that is necessary.

Corruption is rife, as is poverty and unemployment (it’s the Depression). Everyone is out for themselves - and that includes the police.

This is a hard, gritty read, not for the faint hearted, but compelling nonetheless. I was gripped from start to finish, and I’ve spotted that there’s more to come from Dreghorn and McDaid in a second book - it’s on my wish list already!

I’m a huge fan of crime books and a huge fan of Scottish authors so was delighted to be given the opportunity to read this debut novel!

From start to finish, this book keeps you reading and wanting more. Set in 1932, we see Glasgow in a different light and the crime world is a flurry when the son in law of one of the wealthiest families is found floating in the river Clyde.

I loved Dreghorn and McDaid as the main police characters and would love to see more of them in future books! They make a great pairing and are unlike any police officers I’ve read about before, which is brilliant!

I enjoyed all the history involved in the book and found myself learning new things as I read along. I loved that the author was writing fiction but included lots of factual pieces of information so it almost felt like you could have been reading something that really happened!

Overall a brilliant debut novel and I’m excited so read more by this author in the future!

This gritty take on 1930s Glasgow packs quite the punch, as grizzled detectives McDaid and Dreghorn clash with the brutal Glasgow razor gangs. The allusions to Dreghorn's past and his time in WW1 build up an interesting portrait of the man, something it would be good to see explored in a sequel or even prequel. A new contender has thrown his hat into the Tartan Noir ring!

I have sat down a few times trying to write any kind of coherent review of Edge Of The Grave, and have failed miserably, so lets go for the short and sweet. First, this is an absolute shoo-in for my Top Ten of the Year, as I was completely blown away by not only the way that Morrison so assuredly immerses us in this turbulent era of Glasgow’s history, but also the affecting blend of raw masculine emotion and violence, with moments of extreme poignancy that permeate the book. Several times I re-read certain passages, as Morrison’s use of beautifully expressive language and images is captivating, working perfectly in tandem with the rough hewn speech of some of his characters, and moments of extreme and bloody violence.

The central partnership of police officers Jimmy Dreghorn and Archie McDaid works perfectly within the structure of the plot, and adds empathy and ribald humour to the book, particularly as we begin to discover more about Dreghorn’s dark past, but also how his professional and personal relationship with McDaid begins to soften some of his rough edges, and opens him up to a growing sense of trust trust and friendship. I think the plotting was masterful, and although running to a longer page count than most crime fiction, for me there was not a superfluous word or expression. Absolutely one of the best books I have read this year, packed with history, atmosphere, drama and sterling characterisation, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I really enjoyed this book. I live between Edinburgh and Glasgow and loved reading about the characters from WW1 and the 30s. It was riveting and very well researched. I can't wait to read the next book from Mr Morrison.

Disturbing crime thriller

This is the author’s debut novel featuring the unconventional Detective Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn and his sidekick DS Archie McDaid. The setting is Glasgow in the 1930s with flashbacks to World War 1. It’s a disturbing novel with scenes of child abuse so may not appeal to everyone. The gangs are in charge and corruption reaches the apex of local society. Dreghorn has his work cut out.

Robbie Morrison is perhaps better known as a writer for DC Comics but if he follows up this novel with sequels of a similar standard, he will quickly establish himself as a history/crime writer with a large following.

There are some aspects of the novel which are very well done and others that are not. Some of the excellent characteristics include a very fluid style of writing. Pages turn almost by themselves. The scene-setting and atmosphere are concise and to the point and the characters of the main protagonists are sharp and detailed.

Negative aspects include the overuse of Scottish idioms and words, some of which not even Wikipedia could help with. The first half of the mystery holds the reader’s attention well even though the flashbacks were distracting. The second half was overlong and the denouement a little far-fetched. All of this notwithstanding it’s a worthwhile read and we can all look forward to the next in the series.

mr zorg

Elite Reviewing group received a copy of the book to review.

Morrison has a great ear for authentic dialogue and the plot moves at a good pace. Be warned though, it's not for the faint of heart!

I thoroughly enjoyed Edge of The Grave by Robbie Morrison. It is a gritty story focusing on the life and times of a Glasgow detective in the nineteen thirties. As well as writing a first class mystery thriller, the author treated the reader to a detailed history of life in Glasgow at this time. There is a fair share of violence depicted, both in relation to the ongoing case and also through the corruption and gang culture of the period. I was definitely caught out with several of the twists within the story.

I recommend it to anyone who likes a fast paced and twisty thriller. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Detective Jimmy Dreghorn.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read this book.

It has been suggested that this novel is a testimony to the late William McIllvaney, writer of gritty Glasgow crime. Yes we are once again shown Glasgow, we are shown crime from the almost incidental embedded violence to the organised crime that spreads its tentacles widely even to those in power. But this novel concentrates on a few incidents in the 1932, but never forgetting that people have back stories, and maybe motives that refer back decades. Glasgow has moved from the industrial “boom” of the First World War, through the post war recession and is now deep in the depression of the thirties. Poverty for many is real, grim and makes their lives extremely difficult. But after complaints of police nepotism, and hints of corruption, an outside Chief Constable from England has been appointed. He has enrolled a new Inspector to the ranks. Jimmy Dreghorn is Glasgow born, was raised in the tenements, served with a Scottish Regiment in the War and after has served in the police in the Far East. At the start of the novel he is recently back in Glasgow, partnered with a phlegmatic sergeant from the Isles, and is not popular with the other inspectors around him – or indeed his direct superior the DCC.
A body is found in the river, it turns out he is the son-in-law of a leading industrialist Sir Ian Lockhart and has been violently murdered after a previous violent attack. He is living apart from his wife Isla and rumours will develop of deep gambling and money issues. It turns out that, as a boy, Dreghorn knew Sir Ian who ran a “stable for aspiring young boxers and sportsmen. He had met his daughter and indeed served under his son in the trenches. With this key crime to be solved, turf wars develop but Sir Ian (affected by a major stroke) insists that Dreghorn investigates.
To do this he will need to enter into the ambit of the organised crimes of gambling, drugs, prostitution and the accompanying violence. To get the information he needs he will have to reach out to the underworld characters who are involved in, or know who are. This means he needs to come back into contact with Billy Grievson of the Billy Boys, the violent older brother of one of his childhood (and wartime) associates, who has risen to become gang leader and serious player in the city’s casual and organised crime. To get his support Dreghorn will be required to search for Grievson’s sister who “disappeared” nearly twenty years before, after it turns out, becoming pregnant while unmarried and barred from home.
This will lead to a sub plot of the novel – the running of the mother and baby homes at that time and still into the then present. There will have been unkindness, abuse of power over these vulnerable girls, exploitation and corruption. Dreghorn’s investigation of this, it appears, will start to feed into the background to the primary murder. His investigations become more complicated however as he develops a deeper relationship with the widow Isla. Without acting as spoiler, all issues become deeply entangled, before the storyline leads to extreme actions and the murder investigation is “resolved”.
As a first novel, building believable characters, a sense of time and place – Glasgow is vividly depicted – this book is impressive. The crime is not pleasant to read, but then it was not comfortable to live through. Violence comes from power, or lack of it, inequality is rife here and is the reality of life. But crime is not and never has been restricted to the poor – those with power or wealth will often be sitting on the edges, indulging, while paying others to do the dirty work. Expect a clear statement of that.
It should be said that the weakness of the novel seems to be in the “resolution” of the story. The tenor and balance of the whole tale changes, is more drawn out and focussed on actions that start to seem more far-fetched. But that is a personal view; readers might feel otherwise and no doubt move to the next book surely to come in this series.

Edge of the Grave is the first instalment in a gritty, violent and atmospheric historical crime series, featuring Detective Inspector James (Jimmy) Dreghorn. From the very start I was gripped by this but enthralling tale by Robbie Morrison. Set in 1930s Glasgow, adopting a narrative that moves back and forth in time, the reader is acquainted with Dreghorn's childhood and the bullying that leads to him taking up boxing. When Charles Geddes, the son-in-law of Sir Lockhart – one of Glasgow’s wealthiest shipbuilders – is found floating in the River Clyde with his throat cut Dreghorn finds himself in charge of the case. Sir Iain Lockhart ran the boxing club Dreghorn was a member of and he got to know Lockhart's daughter, Isla who is also Geddes' widow and she requested that Dreghorn lead the investigation. Dreghorn and his partner DS ‘Bonnie’ Archie McDaid have to work their way through a network of gangs, wealth, and corruption to get to the truth, with escalating amounts of violence and deaths along the way.

Packed with interesting and vivid characters, this has a real Glaswegian feel to it, in terms of the locale and the narrative accent. The start of a promising series, I'm really looking forward to the next instalment. All in all, a great début.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Pan Macmillan via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Glasgow, 1932.

When the son-in-law of one of the city’s wealthiest families is found floating in the River Clyde with his throat cut, it falls to Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn to lead the murder case – despite sharing a troubled history of his own with the victim’s widow.

From the flying fists and flashing blades of Glasgow’s gangland underworld, to the backstabbing upper echelons of government and big business, Dreghorn will have to dig deep into Glasgow society to find out who wanted the man dead and why.

All the while, a sadistic murderer stalks the post-war city leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake. As the case deepens, will Dreghorn find the killer – or lose his own life in the process?

Much like corporation buses, you wait for one historical crime novel set in Glasgow to arrive and then three come along at once. I recently read and reviewed Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks and in a couple of weeks I’ll be reading The April Dead, also by Parks. Sandwiched between the two we have Edge of the Grave by Robbie Morrison. Fortunately, Alan Parks’ novels are set in the nineteen-seventies while Morrison’s debut takes place in the nineteen-thirties. The only common ground is the city itself.

Detective Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn is a bit of a novelty. He is the first Catholic officer in a police force primarily made up of Protestants*. Jimmy has a no-nonsense approach to policework and will happily bust a few heads to get results. When a mutilated body washes up near a shipyard, he is given the task of uncovering the culprit. Between chapters, there are flashbacks of Jimmy’s life before the Great War as well as his time in the trenches. In modern parlance, I suspect we would probably describe Jimmy as suffering from something akin to post-traumatic stress. He has seen so much blood and death it has fundamentally changed his outlook on life. The only thing that keeps him going is a tenacity fuelled by copious amounts of booze and cigarettes. I got the distinct impression that if Jimmy didn’t have his job, he would likely already be dead. For me, the best detectives are the ones who are barely functioning human beings. They are so driven by the need to make sense of their world it makes following their journey utterly fascinating

One of the novel’s many highlights was Jimmy’s partner, ‘Bonnie’ Archie McDaid. A strapping Highlander, McDaid is the polar opposite of Jimmy. Where DI Dreghorn is a pugnacious scrappy little fighter, McDaid is a man mountain. Away from his job, Jimmy lives an almost monastic existence while McDaid has a family waiting at home. They complement one another and you see that with the easy camaraderie they share.

There is something deliciously lurid about Morrison’s vision of Glasgow. Just below the wafer-thin veneer of civility is a city rife with corruption. Everywhere there is prostitution, gangland violence, social problems and political manoeuvring. It’s hardly a surprise when tensions boil over and bad things happen. Historically, there was so much money and heavy industry in and around Glasgow it was considered Britain’s second city. Morrison’s novel is set just after that period and you can see evidence of the rot beginning to set in. this is a city moving from boom to bust. The Great Depression has burst the post-war economic bubble and the shipyards on the Clyde aren’t the hive of activity they once were. With low employment, slum housing and sectarian gangs stalking the streets, violence has become the norm. The powers that be make the decision that they will fight fire with fire. Jimmy and his colleagues are compared more than once to The Untouchables, and this seems entirely apt. They will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Morrison peppers the narrative with some cracking colloquiums that I can confirm are all one hundred per cent accurate. You can’t beat a bit of slang to give your characters that extra air of authenticity.

On an entirely personal note, I was extremely pleased to see mention of a village very close to my childhood home. I guess that’s one of the many reasons why I enjoy crime fiction set in the west coast of Scotland. Weird though it may sound, it always makes me feel a little homesick and misty-eyed for ‘the auld country’.

This debut kept me enthralled from the first page. The plot keeps getting darker and darker, and by the novel’s climax you really want to see Jimmy dish out some justice. Robbie Morrison’s evocative storytelling places the reader right in the heart of the action. Things get pretty grim, but that’s what held my attention. I had to know how things were going to turn out.

Edge of the Grave is published by Pan MacMillan and is available now. Here’s hoping there will be more DI Jimmy Dreghorn novels in the future. I’d certainly be happy to read them.

My musical recommendation to accompany Edge of the Grave is the soundtrack to season four of Peaky Blinders by Antony Genn and Martin Slattery. There is something dark, almost tribal about the music. Seems like a good fit while reading about a city full of rival gangs and violent tendencies.

*Take it from me, in Glasgow in that time period this would have been a huge deal. There are still people to this day who bang on about the importance of religion and football in the town.

A wonderful picture of 1930’s Glasgow in this ultra violent tale of murders at high and low levels of the city. The two detectives Dreghorn and McDaid are larger than life characters who investigate a body discovered in the Clyde who they find was married into a powerful ship building family. Glasgow’s underworld gang culture feature heavily in the marvellous twisting tale and the early history pre WW1 and during the conflict of Dreghorn knits it together nicely. I hope there is more to come from these characters..recommended!

A new entry into the world of Scottish detective fiction, and a new and interesting perspective - Glasgow in the 1930s - between the wars, a city of extremes of poverty and wealth during the depression, beset by gang violence and with a Scottish precursor to the flying squad newly established. There’s a strong sense of place, and a particularly Scottish grittiness that I’m a big fan of. My one quibble is that early on there are some distinct exposition dumps as context needs to be explaining - handled better in a wee ‘travelogue’ across Glasgow districts than in other sections where the author’s research is perhaps shown off a wee bit too much.
This really is a minor quibble - Edge of the Grave is the first in a new series, and I’m hugely looking forward to the next.

This is a double 5* review.

I loved this book for two reasons , the characters and the bursts of genuinely funny humour in the most appropriately inappropriately places.

The characters are superb, everyone of them is so real I feel like they are all people I know in real life. The Grievesons story in particular is heartbreakingly familiar.

The setting is fantastic, it's written with real flavour and in such a way that Glasgow is as much of a character as anyone else.

The plot is solid and not overly complex. I worked out most of what was going on but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book at all.

The pacing has a good rhythm and mostly works, a couple of places that I got frustrated with how much it had slowed down but they weren't long sections.

The second review comes form my mum. She grew up in Glasgow in the 40's so from the very first page I was calling her to read out little bits (she doesn't really like graphic descriptions of violence so I had to substitute "and then Dreghorn got a right doin" a few times).

The detail in the descriptions of both people and places triggered so many memories and brought her such joy in telling those stories. Thank you.

Having read numerous books which reflect Glasgow as being 'No Mean City' I wondered how Edge Of The Grave might fit in alongside the others.
It portraited the city as it was, an often troublesome place, where you could easily find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and in Jimmy Dreghorn, here was a new character in the word of Scottish crime fiction, one from a bygone age and one that I look forward to reading more about in the future.
The book didn't drag you to deeply into the murky underworld of Glasgow's past, but did enough for you to get your toes wet.
One small aspect of the book that I found strange, but interesting, was the inclusion of Willie Kivlichan, the police doctor, as he is buried a five minute half from where I sit.

Scotland has a great track record of producing first rate crime thriller writers. Robbie Morrison is one of the latest to join this elite group.
This is not a novel for the faint hearted. There is a great sense of time and place: Glasgow during the Great Depression. The plot is dark and disturbing but also full of heart-warming and heartbreaking moments.
Jimmy Dreghorn and Archie McDaid are great characters. I can't wait to find out what they do next.

From GoodReads:
Set in a dark and dangerous 1930s Glasgow, this is a cracker!
DI Jimmy Dreghorn, a troubled man full of contradictions, investigates after a body is found in the Clyde. And off we go on a violent, bloody rollercoaster involving the rich, the poor, gangsters, corruption ,exploitation and importantly the War.
With regular nods to history we get a real feel of the city and its dark underbelly. Edge of the Grave doesn't pull many punches in its investigation of the crime and is all the better for it.
Some great characters and the interplay between Dreghorn and his sidekick, McDaid is especially well done.
More please!

Edge of the Grave is the first instalment in a gritty, violent and atmospheric historical crime series, featuring vividly portrayed and memorable Detective Inspector James Dreghorn. It's 1932 in Depression-era Glasgow and the political and social climate is dire due to depleted resources courtesy of the war. The population is suffering due to an unemployment epidemic, abject poverty, growing disillusionment and corruption in the police ranks, government and businesses, too. The police force of Glasgow – a city swarming with razor gangs, and riven by religious fundamentalism and sectarian division – needs strong leadership to restore law and order. Chief Constable Percy Sillitoe, an Englishman who famously modernised the force and attacked corruption at every level, is appointed by the Glasgow Corporation to bring the crime and brutality that was rampant in the city under control. Charles Geddes, son-in-law of Sir Lockhart – one of Glasgow’s wealthiest shipbuilders – is found floating in the River Clyde with his throat cut from ear to ear. With surgical precision the tendons and windpipe have been severed almost to the spinal column, his beautiful widow Isla asks for DI James Dreghorn to lead the investigation. Bullied as a wee boy, Dreghorn was spotted by Sir Iain who ran a boxing school for ‘the Black Squad’, whom he was training and sponsoring at Kelpie House and got to know Isla very well. Now, with his hulking, pipe-playing subordinate ‘Bonnie’ Archie McDaid, a former Olympic wrestler, Dreghorn enters into an uneasy contract with Protestant gangleader and nemesis Billy Grieveson.

In exchange for vital information, and becoming an informant, Dreghorn agrees to help find his sister, Sarah Catherine Grieveson, who he hasn't seen for 18 years. Sarah had gotten pregnant while Billy was serving an 18-month prison term. The investigation takes Jimmy from ‘Trinity Village’, a purpose-built late-Victorian hamlet in the Renfrewshire countryside about thirteen miles outside of Glasgow, a charitable institution set up for orphaned and unwanted children where Sarah could've had the baby discreetly and then had it adopted, to the murkier parts of Glasgow’s underworld to find out who wanted Charles Geddes dead and why. The two cases begin to look as though they may converge and Dreghorn must ascertain what the connection is between a complex, dangerous and brutal murder and the disappearance of Sarah. More will die before he finds out. This is a scintillating and richly atmospheric murder mystery set against the dark and disturbing backdrop of Glasgow in the 1930s. Real historical characters people the plot of this richly-coloured novel – among them the ex-footballer pathologist Willie Kivlichan, and Benny Parsonage of the Glasgow Humane Society who retrieved hundreds of the living and the dead from the Clyde. Robbie Morrison also weaves in such events as the Quintinshill rail disaster, the worst ever in Britain, and paints a vivid portrait of early 20th-century Glasgow in all its raucous lawlessness. And now the populace has another issue to deal with: the prowling of a serial killer. A riveting, chilling and enthralling read, this is a beautifully written debut. Highly recommended.