Wow another cracking read from the author of The Quacker! Gangland , poverty and policing in the seventies all wrapped up in an excellent story. Extremely highly recommended #TheHeretic#NetGalley

This is a superb read. The story is complex but the reader is taken through each stage carefully. The context of rough Glasgow is exceedingly well used to give authenticity to the tale although anyone not acquainted with the city will be on a learning curve! It starts as if it was nothing but gang warfare and revenge but soon becomes much more sophisticated than that. The relationships within the police are well used with the lead detective in this case returning from London and finding his previous case of revealing a corrupt senior officer is still held against him. The author obviously knows his Glasgow well, using the Masonic lodge and the Protestant/Catholic tensions very carefully. There is no point in revealing information about the story; this book just needs to be read . I recommend it.

Thanks to Liam and Netgalley for allowing me to read The Heretic before publication date.

1975 Glasgow.
After 6 years working in the Met, DI Duncan McCormack is back in the City of Glasgow Serious Crime Squad. He has a lot of enemies, having previously convicted the popular but corrupt DCI Peter Levein, who later committed suicide whilst in prison.
Now he reports to DCI Haddow, who, like many senior officers at the time, was positioning himself for a promotion in the upcoming amalgamation (take over) of 8 forces to create the new Strathclyde Police with Glasgow Police as the HQ.
McCormack and his team are investigating Walter Maitland, the head of one of the Glasgow crime families, but Maitland always seems to be one step ahead.
An unidentified body is found on wasteland and Haddow tells McCormack to take the investigation and drop the Maitland investigation. It is established that the victim has been tortured.
When the body is identified as Sir Gavin Elliot, a former Tory MP and Glasgow Councillor, the investigation takes on a totally different light, exposing connections and corruption which many will want to keep hidden.

This book captures the atmosphere of Glasgow in the 1970s and the tensions as the Marching Season approaches, tensions which even today are present when there is an old firm match.
I enjoyed the detail which is applied to the various locations and had to think how the city was at that time.
The use of words like cowp and set-in bed is great.
This story incudes the gritty darker aspects of Glasgow from the perspective of the good and the bad, the wealthy and the poor. I particularly liked the unsent letters which give the reader an insight into the life of the writer.
When is the next in the series?

After the Quacker comes the Heretic, I loved them both the Thrillers not the villans. Duncan McCormack having put away the Quaker and his boss Peter Levein who had a strong following plus you don't grass on your own. So back after a 6 year stint in the Met now back in Glasgow his home town he is landed with the body of a homeless guy only hes not and things get a whole lot deeper as the days tick by.

This is a excellent follow on from the Quacker it can be read as a standalone but they are both so good my advice is read them both. He has Goldie when him, Liz Nicole and Iain Shand. One is a challenge, Goldie was in the Quacker team, and still suffers from being associated with McCormack each team at the time had a female after the female team was disbanded they were spread throughout the force.

I' think that this is balanced incredibly well setting the culture of the year 1975 with the culture of today, eg a female police officer was often given token roles even though the were a good sometimes better and there is a same sex relationship which could finish someone in the force back then if found out. In a show the role of the female would not be as such a strong and great Cop as Nicol was. An eg would be Bond 007 through the years. But Liam is a great writer and handles it really well.

The police and folks (public) plus gangsters are well crafted and there is no complaint they are so believable there are plenty of suspenseful moments a thriller to get your teeth into and loved it from the start to the end. I loved it how you do to.

Excellent second episode of what hopefully will be a long series.Still set in 60s/70s Glasgow the story of vengeance in the dark underworld with the police investigation led by characters familiar from the first story. Beautifully atmospheric the pace of this complex tale never lets up right to its stunning conclusion. Excellent bring on the next one!

With the name McIlvanney, there is a lot to live to with both William and Hugh both being excellent writers in their own fields and Liam certainly maintains the family tradition.
A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish and an author whose books will certainly be ones to read as they hit the shelves.
Recommend.

Set in 1975 in Glasgow, this mystery novel has captured my attention from beginning up to the very end! I was fully immersed in the complex plot with its complex characters. Having put away corrupted policemen, DI McCormack was not very popular with his colleagues, even after years away from Glasgow. He nevertheless never strayed from his aim: put behind bars the one(s) guilty of a series of murders occurring in Glasgow. Many questions arise as to the culprit (s) leading the detective to investigate a few sub-plots. Tension is high and getting higher... On top of his professional quest, his personal life also involves secrets.... I also found very interesting to witness police procedures of the time, the concept of violence also used by the police; their communication system as there was no mobile phones. The author was new to me , but I intend to read The Quaker (the first of this series), and hope Macillvaney will write more novels involving McCormack! Highly recommended!
Thank you very much for letting me read your novel as ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The ‘Heretic’ is a very strong addition to the Glasgow crime genre. Driven by a strong plot and excellent characterization, this a well written, enjoyable novel.
I felt it helped the narrative having read the authors previous novel ‘the preacher’ as it is referenced throughout the story, however this is a standalone novel, so don’t be put off by not having read this in sequence.
A highly recommended, very entertaining read

This is a stunning follow-up to The Quaker. McCormack is on the trail of a gangland boss but is derailed by a murder enquiry. There are several sub-plots going here and some fantastic character development. McIlvanney keeps the action going but still has time for the thoughtful parts, including McCormack’s private life, that bring characters alive. No 2D characters here. It’s impressively done, thought-provoking and compelling. I very much look forward to more.

I would like to thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for an advance copy of The Heretic, the second novel to feature DI Duncan McCormack of Strathclyde Police, set in 1975.

Six years after catching a serial killer known as The Quaker and a stint in the Met’s Flying Squad, Duncan is back in Glasgow, much to the disgust of his boss, DCI Haddow. He is trying to catch a local gangster, Haddow wants him to investigate the murder of an apparent vagrant, who is wearing an expensive Masonic ring, but before he and his team really get going one of their team is killed in a bomb blast. Duncan is the only one seeing a connection between these cases and an earlier arson.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Heretic, which is a long, complicated novel with an amazingly descriptive and atmospheric setting. When I started reading I didn’t find it particularly gripping as it switched points of view and seemed quite choppy, so I was thinking 3* and it’s a long way to the end. That quickly changed once I got the basics and it quickly became compulsive reading.

It is quite difficult to review the novel because the plot has so many strands and a largish cast of characters. I never felt confused or had any trouble identifying who was who, which is a mark of the author’s skill in making it all clear in what is essentially a soup of competing agendas, assumptions and rivalries. It is very well done. I think the length of the novel gives him time to fully explore the characters and their motivations and the web of interconnections between them. I would note that there are multiple references to and spoilers for The Quaker, the preceding novel, so I would recommend reading it first.

The time and the setting are integral to the novel, Glasgow in the mid seventies. I don’t think I have seen it more authentically portrayed and I loved it. There is nothing like a bit of nostalgia for familiar places to warm the heart. It’s as I remember it, although I was disappointed that no one drank ba bru, my favourite tipple, for the ultimate in reality.

The characters are realistic and the author takes the time to develop them. Duncan McCormack is gay at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Scotland. This presents its own problems and is sympathetically portrayed in the novel. This is not, however, the root cause of his problems at work, which are caused by his exposure of a colleague as corrupt. The politics of that are fascinating.

The Heretic is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

4+

It’s 1975 and DI Duncan McCormack is back in Glasgow determined to complete unfinished business from the Quaker case of 1969. His intention is to nail Walter Maitland now head of a major Glasgow OCG. McCormack joins the Serious Crime Squad, he’s most certainly not liked especially by DCI Alan Haddow, he’s seen as a traitor, a scab to use the parlance of the time, as in the Quaker case he brought down a corrupt police officer. Joining McCormack’s unit are DS Derek Goldie once again alongside DC Elizabeth Nicol and DS Iain Shand. This starts with a terrible fire followed by a brutal murder with the identity of the victim causing many a ripple and then there’s the matter of a terrified potential witness who skips town.

Liam McIlvanney has me glued to the pages yet again! This is most certainly tartan noir, it’s very noir in places but it’s appropriate and realistic as at its heart are ruthless gang members. The plot is complex as we have rival gangs fighting for territory and preeminence, there’s corruption, revenge, immortality and abuse. It’s a well written novel, the plot is believable and the pace is fast. I especially like the plot changes in direction, it certainly doesn’t follow a path you could predict! The author writes with originality, it definitely feels very Scottish which I love, the dialogue is good and sometimes wry or sarcastic in tone. It does hark back to the Quaker case but the author does a good job filling gaps so it's not essential to have read it but it’s a good book too and worth reading in order to see the big picture. The characterisation is good throughout, even peripheral characters are well portrayed. I like the addition of Nicol as through her we see how it is for women in the police force and attitudes to them at this time especially towards women who ply a certain trade. McCormack is a fascinating central protagonist and in this one we learn more about his private life.

The historical context is very good with the problem of strikes, the IRA bombing campaigns form quite a major focus, the changing face of Glasgow with slum clearances and the clear divisions along religious lines with entrenched attitudes, all capture the atmosphere in Glasgow of 1975. The storyline builds well, it’s not pretty in places but it’s immersive reading. The ending is dramatic and shocking. The ultimate ending is especially good as one of the features of the book is how the author keeps the victims of crime in the forefront of your mind throughout.

Overall, this is a compelling novel which is hard to put down and I’m all in for number 3!

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to HarperCollins, Harper Fiction for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

It's 1975, 5 years after DI Duncan McCormack tracked down the Quaker and left for London. He is back in Glasgow investigating an arson attack that caused the death of a mother and child, the murder of a powerful member of the community and the killing of one of his own colleagues after a pub bombing. It's up to McCormack to investigate how these deaths are connected to a powerful local gang. I absolutely loved the Quaker which was a 5 start read for me so have been eagerly awaiting the release of The Heretic. Sadly for me this did not live up to it's predecessor and I found I could not get interested or immersed in the plot. I loved the setting and the characters and McCormack is an appealing protagonist. McIlvanney is an excellent writer and I will definitely read more books in what I hope is an ongoing series.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
3.5 stars.

This is the second in a series of books, set in the late 60s & early 70s in Glasgow. Having been lucky enough to read & love the first one, I was very happy & eager to read this one.
Characters & events echo from the first book, but the story is new. From the first scene, this book grabs you by the throat and never loosens it's grip. It is incredibly atmospheric & written so well throughout. Although there are a number of historic crime fiction set in southern Scotland currently, this stands proudly amongst them all.

Visceral, dark, but stark in it's portrayal of the grim reality of every day life for the people of Glasgow in the 70s. The plot is incredibly strong and enjoyable, I found it physically impossible to put down. Outstanding & doesn't disappoint in any way.