For Those Who Know the Ending

Martin Sivok is in trouble. Tied to a chair, plastic strips biting his wrists, inside a deserted warehouse . . . There are only so many ways this scenario can end, most of them badly. For now his best hope is figuring out who put him here — and staying conscious long enough to confront them.

To stay awake he reviews the past year of his life: evading the law in the Czech Republic by running to Glasgow, settling into a borderline respectable relationship with his landlady, and getting back into the life at the very bottom of the criminal ladder, alongside Usman Kassar, a cocky, goofy kid anxious to prove himself.

The job should be simple: Smash heads, grab cash, run. The trouble with being two outsiders is, you don’t always know whose heads are too dangerous to crack, or whose cash is too hot to handle…

In sharp, precise prose, Malcolm Mackay — an “elegant stylist” unmatched in contemporary noir (Chicago Tribune) — captures the character of Glasgow and its underworld denizens.