ALAN PARKS chats to Paul Burke about his new novel May God Forgive, winning an Edgar, Glasgow and boredom in the music business.

MAY GOD FORGIVE Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack on a hairdresser's has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.
When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, the van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspaper: one down, two to go.
Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow's most powerful people to do it . . .

Alan Parks worked in the music business for twenty years before he turned to crime writing. Initially he managed up- and-coming bands before moving into the creative side of the business, commissioning videos, photography and artwork for household names including New Order, All Saints, The Streets and Enya.
This background has played a significant role in the creation of Parks’ crime novels. The atmosphere and tone of his novels are partly created by using notebooks full of visual references he makes for each story. The main inspiration for the books comes from wandering around Glasgow itself.

Recommendations:
Caitlin Wahrer - Damage
James Ellroy
Philip Kerr - The Berlin Trilogy
William McIlvanney - Laidlaw Trilogy
A McCarthy & H Kingsley Long -  No Mean City

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh
Crime Time

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network.

Produced by Junkyard Dog

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