This was a great return to the gritty Glaswegian crime series, this time catching up with detective McCoy after he has been discharged from hospital following a perforated ulcer and, instead of taking to bed rest as he should, returning to work at a time when community tensions are high due to an arson attack on a hairdressers which killed innocent women and children. There were several intriguing crimes for him to investigate in this as well as the arson and some grim retribution within it. It was good to see him being less jaded than he was in the previous book but still cutting a fine line with his friendship with Cooper. This was well paced, detailed and plenty going on and it’s still great to see the different approaches to policing back in the days. 9/10