Two maestros for the price of one! All fans of quality crime fiction are in for a rare treat. McIlvanney and Rankin at the very height of their powers -- PETER JAMES
Fantastic - like witnessing Scottish noir's Big Bang creation in the company of its greatest living exponent -- LEE CHILD
McIlvanney and Rankin are the dream team. To have Rankin completing an unfinished McIlvanney novel is a crime fiction fan's dream come true -- MARK BILLINGHAM
The journey through 1970s Glasgow, its grotty tenements and genteel suburbs, makes for a gripping and atmospheric novel * * The Times, Book of the Month * *
Absolutely brilliant. I was excited by this partnership the moment I heard it was happening, and it absolutely lives up to expectation. The Dark Remains is a triumph -- MICK HERRON
The personality of the tough, intelligent Laidlaw leaps off the page as readily as it did in the first novel that bore his name * * Financial Times * *
Mean, moody and menacing. Perfect synchronicity from two of the best crime writers of our time -- SUE BLACK
Two legends of Scottish crime fiction blended like a deluxe whisky -- CHRIS BROOKMYRE
[Rankin's] dialogue has the same spiky wit [as McIlvanney's], he adjusts to gangster-ridden Glasgow with aplomb, and the deft period context - politics, pop, telly, football, booze brands, language, family and marital mores etc - is the most compelling reason to read the book besides its charismatic existentialist sleuth * * Sunday Times * *
It was sheer joy to hear McIlvanney's voice once more and be transported back to 1972 and the Glasgow of Jack Laidlaw . . . It would be impossible to calculate just how many writers have been influenced by him -- ALEX GRAY