Having read some of the Harry McCoy series by this author, I was really interested to see him writing something a little bit different in this new crime series.
Based in Glasgow in the 1940's the book introduces us to some great characters and also tells us a lot about the bombing of Glasgow in WWII which I was unaware of the extent that they were attacked. The book gives a totally different spin on the usual crime stories that we often read and the author has done a great job with this. Let's hope that this is the start of a new series of books involving Joe Gunner.
This book will be appreciated by a wide audience as it is historical fiction, Scottish crime mixed with a bit of wartime story and police work. Give Gunner a read and I am sure you will not be disappointed.
Many thanks to John Murray Press, NetGalley, and the author for providing me with an advanced electronic copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.
The book was published on the 17th July and is available in hardback, e-book and audio book formats

This is the first in a new crime series featuring Joseph Gunner. It's March 1941 and Gunner has returned to Glasgow having been wounded on the front line in France. Before the war Gunner was a police detective and he soon runs into his old boss who enlists Gunner's help in a possible murder investigation. A mutilated body has been discovered in amongst the many victims of the German campaign to bomb Glasgow, however the injuries inflicted could not have been caused by a bomb. Gunner reluctantly agrees to help and soon becomes caught up in a conspiracy involving past enemies, German POWs and a number of undesirable characters.

This is a well written, gritty thriller with an appealing protagonist. The excellent characterisations and very descriptive writing make it easy for the reader to immerse themselves into a Glasgow under siege by the Luftwaffe. There are plenty of plot twists that kept me enthralled and intrigued all the way to an unexpected conclusion. My only criticism is the amount of expletives in the first few chapters. Some are definitely required to set the scene, however for me it was a little overdone.

Many thanks to NetGalley and John Murray Press for my advanced reader copy in return for my honest and unbiased review.

I am buzzing about Alan Parks’ new wartime series. I loved his Harry McCoy series so much, and this new series looks set to hit the high notes. March 1941, Glasgow is choking on smog, rubble, and the constant thrum of Luftwaffe bombs. Joe Gunner, ex-detective, front-line survivor, and now morphine-dependent shadow of a man, is our guide through a city teetering on collapse. Parks doesn’t just set a scene; he drags us, limping and breathless, into the heart of violence and conspiracy. Gunner returns to a Glasgow he barely recognises; the Blitz has destroyed many parts of the city.

Gunner isn’t a conventional hero; he’s raw. His leg injury and morphine habit are his anchors. Every step he takes, every thought he battles, comes layered with physical pain and fogged memory. His need to lie low, to just subsist, collides with a hardened instinct to pursue justice. It’s a brilliant tension: a man desperate for peace but haunted by duty. Those inner dialogues, wrestling regret, guilt, and relief, elevate him into something achingly human. And as if he hadn’t enough troubles, his brother is not just a conscientious objector, he’s an active troublemaker protesting on behalf of the working-class lads who are dragged off to war without a thought for their lives.

From the moment his old boss, Drummond, re-enters the scene, dragging him into the ruins, the chemistry crackles. Their rapport is familiar, like an unhealed wound. And when Gunner meets security high-ups from military intelligence, scrutiny and suspicion flash each time he’s positioned between loyalty to his city and the crown. These conversations feel sharpened by the paranoia of the 1940s, where every sidelong glance and every clipped syllable speaks volumes about trust in wartime Britain.

The plot moves forward at pace once Gunner examines a mutilated corpse in a bombed tenement, and then he learns just how outlandish the truth is. Parks channels the real 1941 Rudolph Hess mission into a conspiracy that pulses with shadowy menace. It’s espionage rooted in historical plausibility but with imaginative twists that kept me guessing.

You can breathe the dust and kick the rubble in the streets, hear the wail of sirens, and feel the crowd’s fear and anger after each raid. Parks’ research is meticulous—the gangland tensions, the political paranoia, the fear of ‘enemy aliens’—it’s all woven in with believable texture. The nuances about conscientious objectors, wartime British attitudes, even how morphine was administered, all zing with authenticity.

Parks’ writing never drags. One moment, Gunner’s morphine habit slows him; the next, he’s ducking debris or reading secret memos. Parks’ lean prose, in which no word is wasted, matches Gunner’s fractured psyche. He’s full of moral ambiguity. Violence hits hard. Suspense coils until it snaps. It’s bruising, fast, and beautifully bleak.

Verdict: I love how Parks imagines Glasgow during the Blitz—a city of smoke and shadows, of secrets half-buried in rubble and memory. Gunner, with his tangled loyalties and limp, is a hero for these times. This is an immersive, tightly-wound thriller that will keep you reading into the small hours. If you love noir, history, or just a brilliant story, don’t miss this one.

A new book and hopefully a new series from Alan Parks. Former Glasgow policeman Jospeh Gunner is returning injurede to Glasgow after 18 months in France fighting in WW2. Met off the train by his former DI Drummond, Gunner finds himself in the midst of the fallout from the Clydebank Blitz. Despite his bad eye, damaged leg and general war wounds, he finds himself investigating two German bodies found amongst the Blitz victims in the Kelvin Hall. Who are these men and why are their bodies in Glasgow with no visible means of identification? Gunner's brother, Victor, is a conscientious objector. Tracking him down, Gunner finds himself entangled in complications he could never have imagined. A riveting story with an actual historical event at the heart of it. I hope there will be more Gunner soon. #netgalley #Gunner

Scottish Crime Writer Alan Parks is noted for his series featuring Harry McCoy, set in 1970s Glasgow and with titles referencing the months of the year. He’s got up to June with “May God Forgive” (2022) winning the McIllvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel Of The Year. He’s taken a break from these to set up a new series, keeping the same location but pushing the time line back to the years of World War II. At the start of the novel, Joseph Gunner, who is ex-polis is returning to Glasgow after being invalided out of the army with eye and leg injuries. Coming to terms with this and relying on morphine to get by, crime detection is not his intention until his old boss makes contact. There’s been a big bombing raid tin the streets of Glasgow but one of the dead in the makeshift morgue does not seem to have been a victim of this. Is someone using this nightmare scenario to conceal their crimes?
Gunner is a well-drawn convincing character who could certainly helm a series. The Glasgow he knew just a few years before has very much changed since he has been away. The dynamics of the crime gangs running the underworld has altered and the new brood is keen to enlist Gunner’s support. His brother, a conscientious objector with communist sympathies also adds to his anxieties. The setting feels spot-on. There’s scenes of bombardment by enemy planes which are incredibly gripping and the chaos this causes is being exploited by those who want to subvert or profit from such disorder.
Gunner moves around his old haunts to try and discover what is going on. Often, with crime fiction, I’d be prepared to make concessions over depth of characterisation, the bringing to life of a time and place in favour of plot but here it is perhaps the plot itself which lags a little behind the first-class elements of this novel. It is a little coincidental and at times I wasn’t that bothered about how the plot was progressing, I just wanted to keep reading about how the main character was coping with this very alien Glasgow and coming to term with his injuries. With character, place and time so well established this time round a little more emphasis on plot will ensure that this is a historical crime series prepared to make a lasting impact.
Gunner is published on 17th July 2025 by Baskerville, the crime book imprint of John Murray Press. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Alan Parks is best known for his Tartan Noir crime series featuring police detective Harry McCoy and set in Glasgow in the 1970s. That series is gritty and dark, gives a great sense of place and time, particularly by bringing in the big events of the time. With Gunner he starts what feels like a new series, also set in Glasgow but this time in the middle of World War 2. And once again he has crafted a darkly evocative picture of the time through the eyes of a damaged protagonist.
It is 1941 and former policeman (“polis”) Joe Gunner has been sent home from the Western front after being injured in an explosion. He has damaged one eye so wears and eye patch and has trouble walking due to the amount of shrapnel damage to his leg. As soon as he steps off the train in his native Glasgow he is picked up by his old commander Drummond and asked to help with the investigation of the death of what looks like a German escapee. Complicating matters are the two secret service agents that Gunner has been billeted with, a local gang war with Gunner caught in the middle and the fact that his brother Victor is a conscientious objector who has fled from the farm where he is supposed to be working.
Parks once again does a great job of bringing the streets of Glasgow to life. Particularly the dark side of the tracks of organised crime and bent police. At the same time he shines a light on the German bombing of Glasgow during the Second World War, an event overshadowed by the attacks on London at the time. And, of course, as readers have come to expect, there is also a political angle as events connect to a some very well known historical events.
And Parks does this all through the eyes of Joe Gunner – injured but still able to take a beating, a little bit addicted to morphine and compromised. But somehow Gunner is still a crack investigator and, when he can be, on the side of the angels.
Gunner is another great piece of historical crime fiction from Parks and clearly the start of what looks like another must read series.

Alan Parks's "Gunner" plunges the reader into the smoke-blackened alleys of wartime Glasgow, where bombers wheel overhead and loyalties are rarely pure. In this stark crime thriller, Parks builds his narrative around a protagonist who embodies the scar tissue of his environment: Joe Gunner, a former police detective and army sergeant, physically maimed, psychologically brittle, and increasingly unmoored from any notion of moral clarity.

What makes "Gunner" compelling is not merely its tight plotting or its vivid sense of place—though both are undeniable strengths—but its resistance to present heroism as anything clean or aspirational. Gunner is no beacon of righteousness. He is a man eroded by pain, trauma, and cynicism, operating in a city that mirrors his internal wreckage. Glasgow, in Parks's hands, is not a romanticized noir backdrop but a bomb-pocked, morally fluid landscape that forces hard choices on those who inhabit it.

Gunner himself is the novel's chief triumph and its most disturbing element. Haunted by memories of wartime France and numbed by morphine, he is a protagonist at odds with himself: simultaneously driven and adrift. Parks doesn’t redeem Gunner; instead, he paints a portrait of a man shaped by brutality, no longer convinced that decency holds any real value. This moral indifference gives the book its edge—and its unsettling emotional truth.

The narrative begins when Gunner's reluctant return to police work leads him to investigate a mutilated body discovered in the rubble of bombed-out Glasgow. What follows is a dense conspiracy that exposes the sinister repurposing of identity itself, forcing Gunner on an odyssey through the wreckage of a city—and a self—that no longer recognizes their former contours.

Parks's prose is lean, unpretentious, and loaded with atmospheric weight. He makes no aesthetic apologies for the grit, nor does he try to stylize it into a noir pastiche. Dialogue is sharp, regional, and alive with class tension. And while the plot accelerates with thriller efficiency, Parks wisely slows down when it matters most—to let us sit in Gunner's pain, to make us reckon with the choices he makes and what they cost him.

What emerges from the wreckage is Parks's bleak insight: that clear moral boundaries have collapsed under the weight of expedience and trauma. In such a world, even well-intentioned actions carry the stink of compromise. Gunner does not rise above this dilemma; he is consumed by it.

"Gunner" is not a comfortable read, nor is it meant to be. It is, instead, a sobering meditation on what happens when systems fail, when violence becomes habit, and when the line between victim and perpetrator blurs beyond recognition. Parks doesn't offer solace. He offers truth—and in Joe Gunner, a protagonist whose flaws make him painfully, troublingly real.

This review is based on an advance reader copy provided by NetGalley and John Murray Press | Baskerville.

Alan Parks has done it again- what a cracking story! I have read the Harry McCoy series so knew the writing would be good. As a Glaswegian, I was aware of both the Clydebank blitz and Rudolf Hess. The description of the blitz is harrowing but realistic. I thought the ending was abrupt but maybe we will pick up on the story in the next book. Not sure of two expressions used - ned and jakey. I think these are modern words which wouldn’t be used in the early ‘40s. Great book nonetheless!

A superb world war 2 thriller from the excellent Alan Parks. In his foray away from the fantastic Harry McCoy series.

and on the first look at what must be the first in a series. Alan Parks nails it again with his damaged detective Joe Gunner.

Written with a real sense of place, some characters both real and not and with all the usual shape prose and smart storytelling, Parks has written a compelling and intriguing sort of spy thriller but with a lot more layers.

The style of writing is always top class. The story even better and with another rogue you can’t help but like, Parks has done it again.

Joe Gunner has returned to Glasgow from WW2 service on medical grounds. A former Detective, his boss wants his help in a murder enquiry. A hard hitting, no holds barred story . A quagmire of incidents and villains made for some great reading. A new author to me but I'm looking for other books by this author. 5 star read

Joseph Gunner is a damaged man, who has returned to his native Glasgow following a medical discharge from the army. Cast aside for being too injured to be of any use to them anymore, he has a badly injured leg. His face is pocked marked with scars resulting from a blast that showered him with shrapnel, some of which damaged his eye which may not recover.

The set up is a clever one, a wounded hero returning to his home city looking for respite but finding desolation and destruction. In just two years his world has been turned upside-down. The city, especially the docks areas, has been heavily bombed, killing some, making many more homeless and destitute. In what is amongst the most disturbingly realistic piece of descriptive prose I’ve read in years, the aftermath of bombing and the effect on human bodies is unflinchingly savage. It is not just the dead and dying, but the rescuers and emergency services who are put through the wringer too. This is powerful stuff and executed perfectly.

The plot is crazy but rather clever, tying into one of the most baffling incidents of the war, that comes up with a reasoning that begins to make sense of events. Gunner stumbles into a world of German prisoners and internees, military intelligence and a parallel society. This is best summed up by the idea that the young are expendable, can fight wars and die, so that the old can stay in power. Some care little for who rules providing their status is unaffected.

Gunner is a great variation on the strong, honest and determined protagonist, this time with physical limitations. He returns with a kitbag full of problems; his squeeze has run off with an Airforce Captain, his Bolshie conscientious objector brother has disappeared, and his pain has made him reliant on morphine with his supply running out. He quickly finds himself acting out of character, discovering that the madness of war changes men. A complex and compelling man.
The story doesn’t hang around with the action moving around Glasgow and the surrounding countryside. It’s packed with danger and jeopardy, which are heightened by the nagging sense that characters are not who they profess to be. Being Glasgow there must be a sprinkling of gangland violence, which is brutal, there being a battle for supremacy going on. On one side the old school modelled on George Raft even down to the spats, up against the modern thinkers led by a disabled man with spinal muscular atrophy and his thug brother. Gunner is a man with no resources; can he get the help he needs without being hopelessly compromised.

The motivations and themes are nuanced for a novel set during wartime, being much more than the battle of good versus evil. Victor (Gunner’s brother) is a conscientious objector with communist leanings, but doesn’t consider himself a coward, though many do. For him there are more ways to fight a war than direct confrontation. Then there is the policy of internment. Prisoners of war naturally need to be contained but extending that to all ‘enemy aliens’ who have lived in the UK many years is harsh. Such was the concern and paranoia about fifth columns, German spies and infiltration from within. Yet some within the establishment do not share the views of the masses. This is not a piece of antiwar fiction, but rather an honest and objective review of a complex position that is judged about right.

It couldn’t be set in Glasgow without some of the humour and verbal rough and tumble its renowned for, but it is of a more sparing and subtle kind. It still manages to retain the imprint of the city though.

Naturally I would like to thank NetGalley, the author and publisher for access to this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Hopefully the start of a new series with a soldier badly injured at Dunkirk now out of the army and back home in Glasgow. His old police boss is waiting for him as he arrives at the station and soon he’s conned into helping a seeming murder investigation. Full of gangsters and security service characters it all races violently along and even manages to introduce Rudolph Hess into the plot line as ultimately the clever reason behind it all. As I said hopefully the start of another fascinating series.

Alan Parks is a natural storyteller. His main character is Joe Gunner who has been injured at Dunkirk and finds himself back in Glasgow in 1941. As soon as he sets foot in the city, his old boss from the police force Drummond, corners him and enlists his help with a murder. Of course, air raids and dead bodies are not uncommon but this victim appears to have died via mysterious means. Parks takes us on a walking tour of Glasgow throughout this novel and it feels like we are with Gunner at every street corner and bombing site. A second body turns up and Gunner uncovers an astounding plot involving the British MoD and Hess. Hard to believe it’s actually inspired on a true story and it is a compulsive story. Vivid characters and original story telling. Very enjoyable.

This is part espionage and part police procedural, the story of Joseph Gunner, invalided out of the army after Dunkirk and returning to his native Glasgow. Formerly a police officer he is not quite sure what he will be able to do with one eye not functioning and extreme pain from an injured leg.
When his old boss, Drummond meets him from the train and asks him to investigate a murdered man, found in the ruins of a bomb site, his fingers chopped off to prevent identification, Gunner gives it a go.
Unfortunately he is now reliant on morphine and he has the problem of a viscous villain he sent to prison, now having been released from gaol.
This is a fast paced thriller with a lot of violence, so it is not a book for the faint hearted. I enjoyed reading about Gunner and the well researched descriptions of 1940s Glasgow and its underworld of gangsters who are only too willing to try and pervert justice to serve their own means. Sellars is obviously going to be Gunner’s Faustian nemesis in future books.
The plot about Hess is obviously based on history but the doppelgänger part of the story was quite difficult to understand- maybe it was just me and it didn’t really matter as the novel moved at a cracking pace which really didn’t let up until the very last page and the surprising ending.
I will certainly be looking forward to the next book in the series as Joe Gunner is an interesting character and Alan Parks has told a ripping yarn!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my advance copy.

I was intrigued with the title, introduction etc. and found a WW2 1940s story about a man (Gunner) back from the war wounded.

Set in Glasgow and a bit of a spy story and police procedural but also quite gruesome. Gunner is quite a readable. character, as is his boss Drummond.

Good in places, and maybe the start of a new series?

Thanks to Net Galley and Murray Press for the chance to read and review.

I have read Alan Park's novels featuring Harry McCoy and was keen to read this latest introducing a new character - Joe Gunner. Gunner is a WWIi soldier who due to sustaining a leg injury is now on civvies Street. A former detective it's not long before Gunner gets involved with Glasgow's gangland and wrongdoing within the army and police. A great page turner this doesn't disappoint and hopefully this is the first of a series featuring Gunner.

Very grateful as ever to the publisher for allowing me early access. Particularly grateful as I am an avid fan of this author and I was interested in this new series.

Once again this is an intriguing and fresh development, packed full of the author’s Scottish roots and containing new but deep characters, a plot that writhes and burrows into your consciousness and is a near perfect read.
Set during the Second World War, it feels authentic, Glasgow comes alive but just in a specific time period and the story races off.
This could be the first of many stories within this world but I reminded that previous books would come back alive with new stories also, there is a real opportunity and appetite for those books also.

This is a brand new crime series from the award-winning author of the Harry McCoy books.

It’s March 1941 and after being wounded in France, Joe Gunner, a former Detective, is arriving back in his home city of Glasgow. He’s barely left the railway station, when he’s shocked to be met by his old boss, Drummond.

Drummond says he needs Gunner’s help to identify a body that was found after an air raid. The victim appeared to have met his death, not as the result of an air raid, on the contrary, his injuries are such, that the only conclusion is that he was murdered.

Events become stranger when the victim is identified as a German. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to disguise the identity of the victim. Then another German POW is found dead so there’s clearly something very strange going on. The investigation falls to Gunner, even though he doesn’t want or need it, his reluctance being due to his injuries which are causing him considerable pain, but Drummond (who is not averse to dodgy activities on the side) has a way of getting exactly what he wants.

Partly inspired by the true story of Rudolph Hess's secret mission to broker appeasement with Britain during the Second World War, “Gunner” is a dark, gritty and gripping tale with Gunner himself being a terrific protagonist, along with a variety of characters, good and bad, although it’s hard to differentiate between who’s good and who’s bad at times!

Take the author’s hand and let him guide you through the streets of Glasgow, immersing yourself in the criminal underworld, and life on the home front, with a little espionage thrown in, all amidst the chaos and fear of the Clydebank blitz of World War II. Very enjoyable. Look forward to the next!

Joe Gunner is surprised on his return to Glasgow to find his old police boss, Drummond, waiting for him at the station. Gunner is looking forward to reconnecting with his old girlfriend and finding a bed for the night but Drummond has other ideas. He drags Gunner off to see a body that has been found in the wreckage of Luftwaffe bombing raid. Just one amongst many dead it could have been easily overlooked if the head had not been beaten to a pulp and the fingers cut off so that the body cannot be easily identified. Reluctantly Gunner agree's to help investigate but he had to battle his own injuries and his morphine addiction as well as negotiate old enemies and try and keep his brother safe.
The apparently simple matter of identification quickly spirals into a high level conspiracy involving MI5 and the British aristocracy.
The opening chapters of this book, set against the background of the bombing raids are harrowing with very visceral descriptions of flattened streets, mutilated bodies and distressed survivors, but it is the dark tale of Rudolf Hess's secret mission to involve Britain on the German side of WW2, that is the main thrust of the plot and Gunner has to try and navigate a route through the murky shadows where the sides shift and making the wrong choice brings immediate death.
It is a fast paced story, gritty and dark with many twists and plot turns, made more interesting by the historical detail of Hess's scheme, that sets friends against friends and makes enemies darker. The story has a satisfying ending but an opening for sequels is there, and I for one would be happy to read more about Gunner. He has been built to survive...
With thanks to Netgalley and John Murray Press for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

March 1941, ex police detective Joseph Gunner is sent home from the front due to his injuries. As soon as he gets off the train in Glasgow, he is confronted by his ex boss, Drummond, wanting his help. But all is not as it seems, he’s not being given the whole picture and doesn’t trust anyone.

Really good insight into how the UK suffered during the war, even from people who were supposed to be on the same side. This has such an authentic feel, the description of the bombing of the city was haunting and showed just how people coped, or not, with whatever was thrown at them. It was quite shocking at times, how people treated each other, how people were sometimes out just for what they could get. It really had me engrossed. Fast paced, intriguing read. Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.