How a gunman says goodbye - Malcolm Mackay

Winner of the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award

How does a gunman retire? Frank MacLeod was the best at what he does. Thoughtful. Efficient. Ruthless. But is he still the best?

A new job. A target. But something is about to go horribly wrong. Someone is going to end up dead.

Most gunmen say goodbye to the world with a bang. Frank's still here. He's lasted longer than he should have . . .

The breathtaking, devastating sequel to lauded debut The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, How a Gunman Says Goodbye will plunge you back into the Glasgow underworld, where criminal organizations war for prominence and those caught up in events are tested at every turn.

Malcolm Mackay's award-winning The Glasgow Trilogy concludes in The Sudden Arrival of Violence.

Malcolm Mackay was born and grew up in Stornoway where he still lives. The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, his much lauded debut was the first in the Glasgow Trilogy, set in the city's underworld. It was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award for Best Crime Debut of the Year and the Scottish First Book of the Year Award and was chosen as Best Read by ITV3's Specsavers Crime Thriller Club programme. How A Gunman Says Goodbye, the second book in the series, won the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award. The final book in the trilogy is The Sudden Arrival of Violence. His other crime novels include For Those Who Know the Ending, Every Night I Dream of Hell and In the Cage Where Your Saviours Hide.

'How a Gunman Says Goodbye is even better than its remarkable predecessor . . . The author is already being hailed as a new star of tartan noir and if the third book in this trilogy can maintain the impetus of the first two the existing clan of Scottish writers may have to look to their laurels' Daily Express

'You know how among all the kids acting tough at school there is one that stands out, the only one who convinces? Malcolm Mackay is that man. His characteristically urgent prose style drives his narrative at a remorseless pace as the Gunman - old and approaching the end of his career - works out what options he has left . . . Don't worry that it's set in Glasgow - there's no dialect. Nor that it's the second in a trilogy - it stands alone. By all means read the first book; you'll enjoy it. But it's time to get on board. Hail the new king of Scottish crime. This is a superb book. It should win prizes' Crime Time

Brutal but elegantly constructed
New York Times

A thriller trilogy that thrills . . . Mackay has three great strengths. He knows (or, what is equally good, persuades us that he knows) whereof he writes . . . Second, Mackay is a natural storyteller, able to jump from one hurtling train of action to another without making the reader feel manipulated. And, third, he's got a voice to which we're happy to surrender.
Washington Post