The Papers of Tony Veitch | 
pickSecond of the Laidlaw series finds the aloof, intellectual detective following the trail of a missing student who is also being sought by two local gangsters. Pre dating the emergence of tartan noir this book from the early 1980s definitely seems the template for much of the future genre. I'm looking forward to book 3.
pickThe second of his famed Laidlaw trilogy. We're in 1980s Glasgow, among the hard men, the pretend hard men and the total psychos who inhabit the pubs and seedy hotel bars of the city. A deadbeat wino has died, and nobody cares much except Jack Laidlaw, whose gruff exterior hides a fundamental decency which demands that even the lowest of us deserve justice. The actual plot is subservient to the dialogue and ambience but still a cracking read.
