A seemingly meaningless arson attack on a hairdresser’s shop has resulted in the deaths of five women and children leading to anger on the streets. Three youths have been arrested and their arrival at court is met by a furious mob. An audacious rescue is carried out when the prison van is rammed, and the youths are spirited away. When the badly mutilated body of one is found with the message ‘one down, two to go’ it’s clear that this was no rescue mission but instead vigilante justice. Who was behind it is not clear but there are not many with the means to carry out such a co-ordinated plan to snatch them?

When McCoy is called to a suicide, an apparent jumper from the roof of the Great Northern men’s hostel, he recognises him to be Alistair ‘Dirty Ally’ Drummond purveyor of pornographic materials at the market. Meanwhile Wattie is saddled with the case of an unidentified young woman who is found in a church yard by a dog walker (“it’s always a bloody dog walker”). McCoy lend a hand, but it quickly develops in an unexpected direction which results in Harry having to confront a harrowing point in his past.

The author captures the warts and all ugliness of life for many at that time and doesn’t flinch with its portrayal. He excels in describing the dirty, dark, dismal, and dangerous which flows throughout the prose. It works so well because it is laid out matter of fact rather than feeling forced or in any way contrived. The plot is multistranded but pulls together nicely in the final third of the book. It’s even paced and the narrative switches between the strands keeping the reader’s interest.

In Harry McCoy we have an engaging main character with plenty of baggage and the potential for much future development. He is seriously flawed but trying to do right, though with his own brand of pragmatic morality as can be seen with the closure of this novel. He is wedded to his past, loyal to his childhood friend and gangster Stevie Cooper, which has the potential to bring him down. There is also pain and distress in his past which manifests in this novel with his meeting Ally Drummond and finding his alcoholic father in a hostel. These are deftly handled by Mr Parks in amongst the bloodshed and mayhem.

Many of the side characters are broken people trying to survive their shattered lives, finding succour where they can mainly through cigarettes and alcohol. The odds are stacked against them, but they battle on the best that they can. These are not added merely for the grotesque that some bring, rather there is an element of fondness added, these are tough people doing their best. Unsaid is that those who are not tough fall by the wayside.

The book is peppered with violence including razor slashes, beatings, and torture but in such a way as it is not gratuitous. The violence itself is for the reader to imagine not detailed upon the page, more in the spirit of Hitchcock’s Psycho than the modern slasher style. Even so it will remain dark and bleak enough for most readers’ taste.

What I really like is how each of these books follows on so closely from the one preceding it - taking place over the course of a few days one month, in this case May 1974. The relationships are really interesting - McCoy's long held links with the violent Glasgow underworld - he's trusted by hardmen while solving violent crimes. He is the usual maverick of crime novels, but from another era, when policing had its own rules. The Glasgow of these books isn't one I know and terrifies me if truth be told. There is humour underpinning much of the dark stuff. Seeing Harry's health this time round has me worrying what is going to happen in future books in the series - how long can he continue with a bleeding ulcer? He seems a much older man, but in reality at the age of 32 has had a very tough life. Another good read. #netgalley #maygodforgive

May God Forgive is the fifth book in Alan Parks searing tartan noir Harry McCoy crime novels set in 1970s Glasgow. Picking up not long after The April Dead, this entry sees McCoy once again enmeshed in a turf war between local crime gangs and dragging the depths of a city that feeds on desperation.
When the book opens, McCoy is helping keep the peace at a rowdy demonstration outside a courthouse. Three boys, accused of setting fire to a local hairdressing salon, an attack which killed five women and children, are being arraigned, the crowd want to see them hung. The three are seemingly rescued but before long the first body turns up and it is clear that their saviours just want a chance to torture and kill them themselves. At the same time, McCoy is investigating two other deaths, one of a pornography pedlar and the other of a teenage girl who appears in some of his material, a case that will end up involving the son of his oldest friend and violent crime boss Stevie Cooper.
As with every book in this series, Parks delivers an amazing sense of time and place. The streets and shops and citizens of 1970s Glasgow are brought vividly to life. But once again it is the dark side of the city that Parks is most interested in – not only the crime gangs but their influence and the corruption that follows. So that while there are some twists towards the end of the book, readers who have been following the series are unlikely to be surprised. The trick is to just think the worst of pretty much every character.
McCoy continues to be the prefect centre of this world. With his troubled past (coming to the surface in this book with the reappearance of his father), worrying connections with Cooper and his own internal corruption in the form of the stomach ulcer that saw him hospitalised in the last book. But he is also a dogged, intuitive investigator who will not stop until he gets to the truth no matter what it costs him.
Together with Liam McIlvanney, whose latest novel The Heretic was also set in the same time and place, Parks is placing his stamp on 1970s Glasgow. May God Forgive is yet another strong entry in this series which continues to impress.

May God Forgive is the fifth book in the Harry McCoy series by British author, Alan Parks. May 1974, and DS Harry McCoy returns to work after a month is hospital that did little for his perforated ulcer but bored him intensely. He happens to be watching as a truck ploughs into the prison van carrying three teenaged boys. Their arson attack at a hair salon had mortally injured three women and two children.

The mob at the court house had been ready to string them up, but now a car swiftly takes them away, and the police assume it’s done to avoid them standing trial. McCoy’s CI, Hector Murray assigns him two tasks: he’s to help DS Doug Watson progress his cases and, on the quiet, to check with his informants what the word on the salon fire is.

When an old acquaintance, Paddy’s Market porn retailer Dirty Ally, commits suicide, a quiet chat with a roommate has McCoy wondering exactly what Ally was so afraid of that he would jump off a roof; the suicide doesn’t bear official investigation, but Harry can’t help wanting to take a look.

Wattie’s problem case, an unidentified fifteen-year-old, dressed for a night out, found strangled in a cemetery, is not yielding to his logic, and also has McCoy guessing, until they focus on a strip of booth photos in her purse.

When one of the arsonists’ bodies, clearly tortured, is deposited, with a biblical reference and a sickening cassette tape, in front of the burnt-out salon, it begins to look like a vigilante action. But then ownership of the salon points to possible aggression between rival gangs.

Parks easily conveys his setting, and that largely being mid-seventies underworld Glasgow, it necessitates quite a lot of graphic descriptions of violence, liberal use of expletives, hard drinking, and drug use, in some of which Harry indulges, despite medical advice. Both evidence uncovered in his investigations, and an encounter with his estranged father, take Harry reluctantly back to an unfortunate, neglected youth.

Most of the story takes place over ten days, with Harry doggedly pursuing every lead in an effort to prevent further vigilantism. This involves plenty of red herrings and enough twists to recommend pre-booking a chiropractic appointment. Once again, excellent gritty Glasgow noir and it will be interesting to see what Parks has in store for Harry in the “June” title.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Canongate.

Alan Parks certainly puts the "noir" into Scottish murder stories.
This novel is the 5th in the series of McCoy novels and it opens with Harry McCoy fresh out of hospital with orders to rest up for a month, to avoid smoking and to definitely not drink. No chance! He's straight back on the job dealing with a particularly gruesome series of murders. So gruesome that, in order to cope, he has to spend a lot of time drinking and smoking - but he survives!
Thanks to his endless contacts in Glasgow's murky underworld he seems to make progress but it isn't fast enough to prevent an ever rising body count. By playing on family loyalties - a blood bond that even even brutal gangsters share - Harry gets results but they certainly don't comply with the letter of the law! But Harry McCoy is never one for the rulebook and that's why Parks' novels are so refreshing and unpredictable. If you want to dive into the grim and gritty world of backstreet Glasgow Harry McCoy is your man but, be warned Parks never holds back on the gore!

Alan Parks series featuring Harry McCoy is absolutely in my top 5 favourite detective series I feel as if I know all of the characters personally and just want to find a good woman to sort Harry out with her love and attention to his health before it’s too late.
This new book is by far my favourite to date - it is exciting, fast paced and full of twists and drama. The storyline is extremely harrowing but it enhances the emotions of the characters and makes everything seem more realistic.
As a Scottish reader I may be a little biased but the setting in Glasgow just adds to the atmosphere.
Not a book to be missed by all crime lovers.

If I said after reading this book I’ve ordered the back catalogue of the series I think you can guess I absolutely loved it. Set in the early 70’s Harry McVoy is a detective policing the old school way on the tough streets of Scotland.

This is an absolute must read in my opinion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

MAY GOD FORGIVE follows Detective Harry McCoy, just released from hospital after treatment for a bleeding ulcer and living on a diet of Pepto-Bismol and cigarettes alternately washed down with alcohol and milk.

A hairdressing salon in an insalubrious part of Glasgow has been fire-bombed, killing three women and two children. The City is up in arms. Three boys are charged with the crime and then as they are being transported to the prison, their armoured van is hi-jacked and the boys abducted. One turns up dead the following day with a note pinned to his chest which says ‘One down – two to go’. McCoy’s boss, Chief Inspector Murray is under the cosh. Now responsible for running two police stations, he has little confidence in the police in his new station in Tobago Street.

He sees that the abduction and murder of one of these boys is no more than vigilantism and he is not prepared to stand for it, no matter how many coppers and members of the public think it’s only fair justice. Now McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the other two boys before they suffer the same fate.

This is not a walk in the park for the police force. It’s not clear who sprung the escape plan or why but McCoy fears that there are no good intentions behind this escape. Not fully recovered, though he protests the contrary, McCoy is put on behind the scenes enquiries, doing what he does best, making use of his contacts and ferreting out what small nuggets of information he can. He’s also keeping an eye on Wattie’s case – the murder of an unidentified young woman whose body was found strangled and dumped at Sighthill Cemetery.

Harry has always walked a fine line between the law makers and the law breakers in Glasgow and now it seems that some of the latter are trying to redeem themselves through good works.

As McCoy picks his way through his network of criminal contacts his enquiries lead him to the turf war going on between Jimmy Smart and Dessie Kane. Smart is building up quite a business empire and Dessie Kane is pinning his immortality and rise to respectability on his charitable links with the church and especially the next Archbishop of Glasgow to whom he is close.

Of course Harry also calls in on gangland boss Stevie Cooper, whose son Paul has gone missing. Somehow all these threads, floating in the wind, can be pulled together and made into something that resembles a pattern; if only McCoy can work out what that pattern should look like.

Never one with a strong stomach at the best of times, this is McCoy at his most vulnerable. And when a man is down, that’s the best time to kick him. Alan Parks makes the most of McCoy’s vulnerability to expose more of his past and to allow us to understand just how McCoy came to be the damaged adult that he is. It’s a difficult, poignant and heart-aching story and Harry McCoy’s vulnerability is laid bare as we understand more of what has happened to him.

Through his dredging of the depths of his contacts, he finds himself up to his neck in seedy squalor. How the apparent suicide of ‘Dirty Ally’ porn mag purveyor is connected to the disappearance of Paul Cooper and the fire-bombing of a hairdressing salon isn’t very obvious, but connected they are.

Parks does a sterling job of making McCoy’s illness match exactly the stomach churning activities of the criminals he’s investigating. It’s a perfect match – the bleeding ulcer in McCoy’s stomach meeting the rotting heart of these criminals’ endeavours.

As McCoy lumbers through the violence, the poverty and the exploitation of women and children, in his relentless pursuit of the truth, we can see he is killing himself. At the heart of this book there are so many questions about ethics and morality. McCoy draws his own moral lines and though they may not be straight, he is true to them. His loyalty to and relationship with Stevie Cooper is complex and goes way back but McCoy can see how others are exploiting the system and the fine line between gangland boss and businessman grows finer by the day, with respectability being bought by charitable donations and the conversion of money from illegal activities into the veneer of respectable businesses.

Alan Parks brilliantly re-creates 1970’s Glasgow and the divide between those who have and the have-nots. His violence is unremitting; the crimes are hard to stomach. But the characters are stand out brilliant, the plotting is superb and the sense of place second to none. Alan Parks asks some hard questions of his flawed protagonist and the answers do not come easily.

This is noir good and proper and it is an outstanding read. This whole series is utterly magnificent and completely unmissable and this book is the pinnacle of the series so far. Compelling, bleak and heart-breaking, this is a book not to be missed.

This is Book 5 in the Harry McCoy series and I was eager to read it, having enjoyed the previous books. This can be read as a standalone book, but why would you want to when you can read five of them!
1970's Glasgow is a tough place to live and the atmosphere is full on. Harry McCoy lives close to the edge, in an era when policing was less about codes of conduct and paperwork, and more about pounding the streets and undertaking the odd illegal route to solving crimes.
In this instalment, Harry is investigating an arson attack on a hair salon, where women and children were fatalities. Is this a turf war? The return of gang leaders we've met before, along with some new faces, make this a tricky crime to solve.
Harry is also struggling with his health in this book. Please don't die or quit Harry - we need more in this series!

Having not paid much attention to the blurb of this book, I was surprised to find it was set in 1974. I wasn't sure what to expect as TV have taken this idea into shows like Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes and I was concerned this was more of the same. I need not have worried - May God Forgive doesn't use the future ironically to make its points or enhance its story. McCoy, the main detective is a fascinating character and we learn more about him as the book develops. Between lighting his cigarettes and swigging his Pepto Bismol, we know he's not in a good way. His boss smokes a pipe and is all experience and wisdom. He treats McCoy as a cross between his son and his mentee. The storyline is really good. The book starts with a terrible fire in a woman's hairdressers of all places with terrible loss fo life. Three young guys are accused and on their way from court in a van are ambushed by persons unknown. I won't spoil it by saying more. The story develops really well; McCoy and Wattie, his sidekick are taken into the dark world of Glasgow gangland. Parks uses Glasgow like a character, you learn the city and all its haunts, its high life and low life. I really enjoyed May God Forgive - excellent characters, really good suspense and the historical setting makes it more tense - how did the police ever manage without mobile phones and emails?

Book 5 in the Harry McCoy series. I haven't read any of the earlier books but it didn't stop me enjoying this one.

Set in the 1970's it's a world away from current police thriller books. No mobile phones, Internet and very basic forensics makes the plot very interesting.

This is quite dark and gritty with language some will find disturbing.

Harry is a fascinating character who isn't always on the right side of the law.

I really enjoyed this book and I'll look out for the earlier one's in the series.

The latest in the Harry McCoy series.

It is 1974 and the people of Glasgow are outraged by the arson murder of the occupants of a hair salon. Harry, discharged from hospital but not fully recovered from his stomach ulcer, suspects gangland involvement. The murder of a young woman and the suicide of a longtime pornographer further muddy the waters.

Harry is dogged in his investigations but still seems intent on self-destruction. His search for the truth is matched by a disregard for his own health. Yet Harry is prepared to dirty his hands in a trade off for some kind of justice.

The Harry McCoy series is one where I eagerlyI wait for the next instalment - there’s a level of consistency that’s rare in an annual series following a specific copper (and supporting cast of police and criminals).
May God Forgive is no exception- digging further into the back stories of the main characters, as seen through current events (no clunky exposition), and telling a gripping, bleak Glasgow detective story.

Roll on June…

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a free copy in return for an open and honest review

Gritty and dark, full of twists and turns. A great read. Recommended.

Harry McCoy hasn’t really recovered after his latest case but is back to work as the whole city is mourning the loss of five women and children who were killed after somebody set fire to a hairdresser’s. The atmosphere in the city is hot when the three young men are arrested for the crime, but just outside the courthouse, the police van is attacked and the three of them are kidnapped. It does not take too long until the first shows up again: severely mutilated and killed. Police need to find the hiding place before the other two are massacred, too. Yet, this is not the only case Harry has to work on, a young unknown girl has been strangled and dumped on a cemetery. The police detective does not have the least idea where this case will lead and what it will demand of him.

The fifth instalment of Alan Parks’ series cantered around the Glasgow detective Harry McCoy again combines brilliantly the mood of the 1974 Scottish city with McCoy’s personal life. “May God Forgive” repeatedly challenges morals and ethics and raises the question if something as a fair trial and sentence can exist.

I have been a huge fan of the series from the start and I still have the impression that it is getting better with each new novel. This time, it is several cases that drive the plot. First of all, the case of the burnt down hairdresser’s which seems to be connected to the city’s gang rivalries. McCoy wanders between the world of law and order and the illegal underworld thus getting closer to what has happened. He ignores his health which would much rather confine him to his home, but what should he do there?

His private life is also addressed in several ways thus granting more and more insight in the complex relationship he has with his father and his upbringing. Loyalties going far back in to his childhood now force him to question his very own place as a representative of the system, much more than it did before even though his friendship with Stevie Cooper put him in tricky situations before. Can you ever really overcome where you come from? Obviously not, but on the other hand: aren’t the institutions responsible for law and order sometimes as corrupt as the underworld?

A lot of suspense and food for thought as you as a reader quite naturally also ponder about the question how you would have reacted in McCoy’s place. Another great read of one of the best contemporary crime series.

This is the fifth instalment in the Harry McCoy series, and Alan Parks has delivered another strong story. This can be read as a stand-alone story, but if read as part of the series, it allows a lot of insight into Harry McCoy and his background, of which more is revealed in this story.

The book starts with Harry returning to work after sick leave, following the events in The April Dead. The first case that is being investigated is the murder of five women, caught in a fire in a hair salon which has been set by arsonists. The alleged arsonists are on trial and things quickly spiral from there, as they tend to in this gritty depiction of 70s Glasgow.

I am really enjoying this series, and I’m already looking forward to the next book. The characters have depth and are multi-layered, and the descriptions of Glasgow, although relatively bleak, ring true of the time period. The mysteries are convoluted but always ring true - many authors end up going one twist too far, but I have not found this to be the case with this series. I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anybody, either as a stand-alone or as a strong addition to stellar series of books.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

5/5 Outstanding.

This is the Fifth book in the Harry McCoy series, set in Glasgow in the 70s and as usual it’s a stunningly good read from Alan Parks.

McCoy is investigating a string of crimes as is the style Parks writes, lots of strings to his stories but never over complicated or too much.

Authentic, well paced, superbly plotted , and full of larger than life criminals, alcohol, drugs and more, it really is very good,

With most series these days there is a troubled detective but McCoys’s troubles are very different from most and very much of his own making as he continues to abuse and torment both his body and mind in pursuit of the truth and his own brand of justice.

Absolutely cracking and one of my favourite reads so far this year.

This is the fifth book in the Harry McCoy series and it’s another very good addition to the series.

It is now May 1974 and McCoy is back at work even though his stomach ulcer makes him scarcely fit. An arson attack on a hairdresser’s leaves five women and girls dead and the city baying for revenge. The three boys responsible are in custody but are snatched while in transit from court. A complex plot emerges involving possible involvement by two of Glasgow’s underworld bosses and a lot of delving into the nastiest aspects of the city, while Stevie Cooper remains a menacing presence in McCoy’s life and in the investigation.

It’s very well done – and about as noir as it gets. McCoy is ill and disillusioned, it is late May but still raining incessantly, there is a wide range of seedy or ruined characters and some of the violence is truly sickening. Nonetheless, it’s an engrossing story with Alan Parks’s evocation of the Glasgow of the period and its characters being as convincing and fascinating as ever and I was completely engaged. There were strong echoes of William McIlvanney here – which is just fine by me.

Parks is beginning to deserve to be ranked with other contemporary giants of Scottish crime writing like Rankin, Mina and McDermid, I think. This isn’t for the faint-hearted, but if you like crime to be really noir, I can recommend this warmly.

(My thanks to Canongate for an ARC vie NetGalley.)

Having not previously read any of the first four books involving the flawed antihero Detective Harry McCoy I read this book as a one-off. To describe it as gritty and violent would be a major understatement as it takes us through the underworld and tough policing of the 1970s Glasgow.
How much reality as to the persons depicted in this book can only be verified by those living there at that time but the author's research is surely based on knowledge and fact before writing this explosive read about a seemingly brutal time and place.
My thanks to NetGalley and Canongate for this ARC in exchange for n honest and unbiased review.

Glasgow, 1974. Harry McCoy is a flawed detective; just back from being off sick with a bleeding ulcer but still chain smoking, drinking too much, not eating properly. After a fire in a hairdressers shop - five dead - three boys are arrested and then almost immediately sprung from police custody. The next day one turns up dead, with a note " One down two to go". Harry has to find the remaining tow before they are killed. Gritty, fast and violent, its a glimpse of a past where policing was very different.