The Papers of Tony Veitch

At the start of Edgar-finalist McIlvanney%E2%80%99s excellent second entry%E2%80%94first published in 1983%E2%80%94in his Laidlaw trilogy, Det. Insp. Jack Laidlaw receives a summons to a Glasgow hospital from a homeless man he knows, Alexander %E2%80%9CEck%E2%80%9D Adamson. The alcoholic Eck is largely incoherent, but before he expires, Laidlaw is able to make out one repeated statement: %E2%80%9CThe wine he gave me wisny wine.%E2%80%9D Among Eck%E2%80%99s few possessions is a piece of paper with a handwritten note that appears to be some sort of philosophical manifesto. Two names also appear on the paper. Laidlaw and his partner, Det. Constable Brian Harkness, discover that one of those named, a well-known thug, has recently been murdered. When they examine Eck%E2%80%99s possessions more thoroughly, Laidlaw and Harkness wonder who helped Eck write his mini manifesto, and this leads them to well-to-do Tony Veitch. New evidence soon proves that Eck didn%E2%80%99t drink himself to death; he was poisoned. Veitch becomes the prime suspect for both murders, despite Laidlaw%E2%80%99s doubts that he%E2%80%99s actually the killer. But forces beyond Laidlaw%E2%80%99s control, on both sides of the law, try to thwart his investigation at every turn. McIlvanney, the undisputed grandfather of tartan noir, gives reader a complex, existential hero struggling to right myriad wrongs. Agent: Laura Mamelok, Susanna Lea Associates. (Sept.)