Back with Rilke and nothing much has changed in his life. He’s still at the auction house and, when not there, is out seeking casual sex with strangers.

Until an acquaintance is found dead in a back alley and Rilke’s sense of fairness and justice pushes him to investigate further and he finds himself entangled with ruthless gangsters and exposed to the seedier side of the gay scene.

A simple plot with few surprises but wonderfully told. Rilke may be a grumpy, ageing Glaswegian (most of us are) but he has a warmth and humanity and caustic sense of humour which are beguiling.

All plot strands are tied neatly and there is a heartwarming postscript by the author.

Twenty years ago Louise Welsh unleashed The Cutting Room into the world. It featured Glasgow auctioneer Rilke and his boss Rose and it took readers into a dangerous tale of death and secrets with the awkward and unforgettable Rilke leading the story. He was a strong gay character living his life at a time where gay characters were not accepted in many circles. Liaisons snatched in parks and public toilets were dangerous but integral parts of Rilke’s social life.

Now two decades later Louise Welsh returns to Rilke’s Glasgow and we quickly see how much has changed but also how much has stayed the same. Those illicit liaisons are now co-ordinated and accepted dates which can be arranged with a swipe on an app. The book opens with a wedding of two of Rilke’s friends and all the guests are celebrating a same-sex marriage with an extravagent party. The tone of The Second Cut is immediately lighter than The Cutting Room where Rilke was exploring an old home and rooting around in the attic where he makes the shocking discovery in that novel.

But for Rilke life isn’t all light and fun. The auctionhouse where he works is experiencing cash flow problems and the staff are not as reliable and efficient as Rose would like from her employees. An opportunity lands at Rilke’s feet when one of his oldest friends (maybe acquaintance would be more to his agreement) makes Rilke aware of a large estate house outside the city which needs cleared. It’s a potential payday bonanza for Bowery Auctions but nothing is ever straightforward and taking on the job is going to bring many problems to Rilke’s door.

The tip-off on the house clearance came from Jojo, a fast living party loving character who is about to dance off this world. His death shocks Rilke and brings him into contact with a student who shared a house with Jojo and who used Jojo as a focus for his artworks. Jojo needs a funeral and his death indirectly brings some very unsavoury characters out of the shadows and into Rilke’s face.

Louise Welsh has brought beloved characters into the modern day and she has done it with some style. The Second Cut was a terrific read as the characters felt all too real and the danger Rose and Rilke find confronting them was extremely believable and also shocking.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with The Second Cut, Welsh is a natural storyteller and the pages flew by as I became lost in the world of auctions, parties, artwork and Glasgow gangsters.

Hey guys! I remember reading The Cutting Room way back when and loving the gothicness and how Scotland was like a person in the book. Very worthy follow up. Easily as good as the awesome first. Amazing heart and soul. Spread the love!

Having just done social media battle supporting LGBTQ+ people I entirely sympathise with the author's feelings in the acknowledgements. Sadly, it seems we have gone backwards in our attitudes. I seem to be saying more about the acknowledgements but the line -Here's to righteous anger that prompts creativity and change is after my own heart.
Certainly gritty and a powerful story line. The characters are well crafted . the book well written. Glasgow is a city I have been pleased to get to know better recently and I found that this helped me connect to the book. Not having read the first book I feel I ought to. Rilke is a great character

Rilke returns

How many years is it since I read the first Rilke novel, The Cutting Room? This was something really fresh, really innovative, the gay, dissolute auctioneer drawn into a sinister scenario that for much of the text may or may not have been a crime. The picture of Glasgow, the characterisation, the denouement – all delighted. And then nothing more….

Until now, Rilke twenty years on, a Glasgow open and welcoming to same sex weddings, where the boundaries of the new gender wars have gone far beyond acceptance of gay relationships, but where crimes and criminal intent remain endemic.

Rilke finds himself unwillingly drawn into a quest to discover whether an old acquaintance has died of natural causes, or not. The fact that a large stash of possibly lethal drugs is discovered in his apartment adds to his suspicions, as well as the involvement of a new post-lockdown crime boss. Then, too, there is the old house in the countryside, the sale of its contents, the missing aged owner, the haste of the sale, its connection both with the drug baron and Rilke’s deceased friend.

The plot impresses in many ways, its complex ingenuity with the half unwilling, half curious Rilke nosing about. The picture of gay society in Glasgow is quite an eye opener. And it’s one of the first novels I have read which is set explicitly in a post lockdown context, perhaps a little optimistically I reckon. Well worth a read, a page turner on so many levels.

I was really happy to catch up with Rilke and Rose again, apparently 20 years after the first book in this series. I loved being back in the wilder side of Glasgow, where a tip-off from Jojo about the possibility of a great house clearance job which could help out the struggling Bowery Auction House business, it leads to all sorts of shenanigans. This one would probably not be suitable reading for an elderly great-aunt, but it's a great read, so well written. I hope the next book in the series is written soonish, rather than having to wait another 20 years, I may not be around to read that one!
I received a digital copy of the book for review via NetGalley. Thank you.

I'd not read he previous book about this character which received critical acclaim
I enjoyed this book I found the Glasgow setting and the characters all totally believable and enjoyed the fact that the lead character was gay as were a number of other people met during the story .The place setting was well defined and highly visual , I felt the book would make a good tv series .
I was initially grabbed by the storytelling and found the book flowed well and was an enjoyable read .
The author is witty and the characters well drawn and complex .The writing is highly visual and some of the scenes very exciting

This is an honest review provided in exchange for an advance reading copy, courtesy of NetGalley and Canongate.

I haven't read the first book, but I don't think that mattered. A great read a gritty thriller. Recommended. Hopefully, there will be another and we don;t have to wait another 20 years.

The return of Rilke the auctioneer who often finds himself in Glasgow's murky underworld. In this sequel (not really necessary to read the first book from 20 years ago) Rilke is plodding through life minding his own business when a house clearance tip off from old friend Jojo looks like it might help the auction house out. Then Jojo turns up dead in an alleyway the day after. Rilke is the last person to see him alive, was it a case of one party too many? How wild was the party? Rilke is as nosy as ever and keeps asking the wrong people questions.

I only have distant memories of Rilke from the first novel but I remember the way he doggedly gets himself into trouble despite everyone telling him to keep his nose out. With anonymous sexual encounters, party drugs that help orgies along and some human trafficking he's definitely found more trouble than usual. The supporting characters although brief are well done, and I like that not all the baddies are totally bad and the goodies and always that good.

Rilke rides again! Superb contemporary, gritty thriller featuring Rilke an antiques auctioneer in Glasgow who gets caught up in dire situations not of his making. Rilke was first featured 20 years ago; this is his 2nd outing and he is getting on in years but still enjoys anonymous hook-ups via Grindr. He is shocked when one of his contempotraries, Jojo, is found dead under a fire escape in the centre of the city and suspects all is not as it seems, although the police are not interested in investigating further. He meets the young art student who was renting a room with Jojo and who wants to give him 'a good sendoff'; together they look through Jojo's boxes (of what they thought were antiques) to try and raise money for his funeral. They find something else, the implications of which scares Rilke as he sees trouble ahead and knows this has to be dealt with.
Gangsters, deaths, orgies, clubs, Grindr, violence, modern slavery and gender politics all feature - as integral parts of the story, (not as 'issues', don't worry) - this is a gripping and intriguing book the writing of which is superb. Absolutely up to the minute and the unexpected climax near the end will keep you awake till the early hours. Not one for the fainthearted, but oh, so good! Highly recommended.

Very enjoyable and fast read. I liked the characters and setting in the seamier side of Glasgow life. The characters stood out for their flawed humanity and the plot moved along nicely. Rilke was a hugely likeable protagonist, and not having read the first book that this is a sequel to, I’m definitely going to go back in (his) time and read where his story started. Hope there’ll be more of him to come.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Having not realised until the very end that this was a sequel, I have come to this work completely fresh and without any expectations. I think it is too grim to say that I enjoyed it but it is certainly a well written, interesting and thoughtful book.

The story is told from the point of view of Rilke, an auctioneer living in Glasgow who is trying to stay out of trouble but ends up finding it when his friend Jojo gives him a tip off about a house clearance only to be found dead on the street shortly afterwards. Rilke reluctantly at first tries to find out what happened to Jojo but between this and the house clearance, he finds himself between drawn into the seedier side of life in the city. Will he work out what happened and if he does, will he live to conclude the tale?

While this is very much a mystery story, it feels like much more than that. It goes into some of the realities of living in the queer community in the 21st century and it has some wickedly dark humour in it.

For a mystery story, I didn’t feel it had enough urgency to it and the big reveals at the end didn’t feel particularly rewarding for me as a reader. But then I suppose that’s the reality of situations like that, not everything is always neatly tied up and like an episode of Midsomer Murders!

I also want to give a mention to the afterword which is essentially a summary of how things have changed for the LGBTQ+ community in the last 20 years but how far there is still to go. I couldn’t agree more and would like to thank the author for highlighting this.

Overall, I would recommend this book to others, even if you’ve not read the first book as it definitely works as a standalone. And I enjoyed it enough to seek out the first book which I hope to read soon.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

This has been a book so worth waiting for! I adored The Second Cut. Louise Welsh brings an easy familiarity to the city of Glasgow and at the same time pokes under its flabby belly to expose a raw and sometimes paper thin skin. Her writing is sharp, funny and insidious. Her characters are glorious; brilliantly drawn, they get under your skin and their humanity shines through even when the morality is somewhat ambiguous.

The Second Cut is a novel worth waiting for. It follows on 20 years after The Cutting Room, though is easily read as a stand-alone. Contemporary and full of wit, it transcends the crime genre. Welsh displays a glorious depth of knowledge about the LGBTQ+ community in Glasgow. Here you will find the sheer brutality of Grindr; meet the trans twins, attend an orgy and learn more about chemsex than perhaps you should as you enjoy the vibrant glorious world of Rilke, an older man with a kind heart who still lives his life in search of hook ups.

Rilke is an auctioneer at Bowery Auctions, working for Rose, who has a more off than on relationship with Detective Anderson. Things are hard in the midst of the Covid era, and so when in his cups, JoJo gives Rilke information about a fabulous estate sale that he can secure if he’s quick off the mark, there’s no hesitation in following up the details. Not long after, however, JoJo is found dead and Rilke was seemingly the last person to see him alive.

The police don’t see any suspicious circumstances, but Rilke can’t help feeling the something isn’t right. JoJo wasn’t in great shape, it’s true, but there was no reason he should have keeled over and died.

From the off, there’s something spooky about Bannatyne House, where the estate sale is to take place. They pass the scene of a bad car crash on their way in to the house and not long after arriving make a gruesome discovery in an old trunk that turns pretty much everyone’s stomachs. Were it not for the seriously good range of treasures in the house that will make them a hefty commission, Rilke might well turn round and go home.

Things don’t get any better when allegations start to surface about the behaviour of the brothers selling the estate on behalf of their mother, now suffering, they say, from dementia. Rilke finds an Asian man on the road in a state of real distress and calls in Anderson to ensure that the man, who is incoherent, is properly looked after by the system.

Rilke has a heart and it can be softened, despite his need to uncomplicated his life and have no encumbrances. Thus he finds himself involved when JoJo’s flat mate, Sands, wants to raise enough money for JoJo’s funeral.

Being Scotland, connections are everywhere and it doesn’t take much for Rilke to fall foul of the latest ‘big man’ on the scene, Jamie Mitchell. Rilke’s world is complex and everyone knows everyone else, or is at least only a couple of steps away, and that, especially in the gay scene, means that everyone really does know everyone else.

Louise Welsh has made the contradictions in Glasgow shine out. As a character it is both bold and brash, loudly proclaiming its past. All this it does with no irony, despite its foundations being built on the backs of slave labour. Welsh exposes these contradictions in the way that you’d chastise a badly behaved lover; you know all their faults, but you expose them so that they can be cleansed and you can love them better and more openly.

There’s modern slavery here too, and a thriving drugs trade that preys on the young and old and makes sure that dark and disturbing elements are never too far away from the surface. Here we have fascinating and sometimes quite disturbing characters whose veneer of respectability hides a dark and brooding violence.

Verdict: This is a delightful, well plotted and brilliantly characterised novel that shows you loneliness, greed, sad sex and sorry violence. It’s glorious, so well written and full of spirit and humanity. Stylish and yet squalid, The Second Cut is chock-full of life, vivid, gleaming characters and a brilliant witty spirit. I haven’t described it well enough, because it is so good that I’m a bit tongue tied, but trust me, this one is fabulous and goes straight to the top of my must read recommendations.

The second cut by Louise Welsh.
Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead. Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will? Thrilling and atmospheric, The Second Cut delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in The Cutting Room, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.
This was a good read with good characters. Likeable story. 3*.

I loved The Cutting Room so couldn’t wait to read what Rilke gets up to next in The Second Cut. I got the ARC before the author read an extract on The Big Scottish Book Club. I enjoyed this just as much as the first book. The book is set in Glasgow where I lived for almost eighteen years until the end of October last year. I really enjoyed the way the city is brought to life; the sights and smells really evoked a sense of place. At the start of the book Rilke doesn’t seem to have changed much but he develops across the book. Rilke thinks there’s something fishy about the house clearance but lets the prospect of the money they will earn cloud his judgement. I found this an engrossing read.

Books about illlegal sex parties, hardcore drugs, and criminal/drug lords is not something I would willingly pick up. However, I did get into this book very quickly - the writing style is excellent and kept me on my toes all of the time. There’s no slow bits or anything boring happening in this book.

An excellent read (from someone who does not read this type of book at all!)

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review

A delve into the underbelly of the dark side of Glasgow. Interesting to meet Rilke who is a dark character on his own. He works in the auction house but moves in different circles and is looking to solve the murder of Jo Jo a drug dealing acquaintance of his .
Well constructed and not for the squeamish

Quite the eye-opener chock full of interesting characters. I'll never look at polytunnels in the same way.

A sequel to The Cutting Room, and 20 years since his first appearance, Auctioneer Rilke returns in another story based in Glasgow. Rilke is still involved with the seedier side of the Glasgow gay scene. Although things have improved in the last 20 years homophobia is still rife and much of life remains ‘in the closet’. If you are likely to be offended by very descriptive gay relationships then this is probably not for you.

Briefly, business at the Auctioneers has been slow but when his friend Jojo tells him about a house clearance things start getting interesting. Unfortunately the next day Jojo is found dead in a doorway. The police are not interested in investigating as he was a well known drunk, Grindr and drug user. Rilke is asked by a friend of Jojo to help arrange a funeral the costs of which are met by a local gangster. However the gangster expects something in return. Meanwhile another body is found on the streets and Rilke wants to find out if there is more to the deaths than the police believe.

This is a dark story which evolves between the house clearance , gay orgies and a strange smell around the gardens of the house. Meanwhile Rilke stomps his way through whilst trying to stay just about on the right side of bad. At times a tough book to read with themes that may not suit everyone but certainly worth sticking with. Fast paced and well written ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Twenty years ago the author had her first book published. "The cutting room". This book is the second appearance for the gay Auctioneer Rilke. He works at the Bowery auction rooms in Glasgow, owned by the larger than life Rose Bowery. She is in an on off relationship with one of Rilke's old school friends Detective inspector Anderson.
Rilke is on the edge of the LGBT scene. Jojo is a hedonistic gay character into the drug market He sells Rilke information on a large country house sale. The next day he is found dead in an alley. Rilke has to identify the body as there are no family. Joseph Nugent aka Jojo had a lodger a young man Sands who wants to give him a funeral but hasn't the money.
The country house is owned by an elderly lady who is to go into Care, her son and his cousin are looking for a quick sale. This looks like a good deal for Bowery auctions but is it too good?
Soon they are involved with rival drug gangs and their enforcers. Rilke is obsessed with finding out what happened to Jojo but will it be an obsession too far?
The author has written books on a wide range of topics, good writing which keeps you reading. This however is a good follow up to a subject close to her heart.