For Those Who Know the Ending

Martin Sivok is in trouble. Tied to a chair, plastic strips biting his wrists, inside a deserted warehouse . . . There are only so many ways this scenario can end, most of them badly. For now his best hope is figuring out who put him here -- and staying conscious long enough to confront them. To stay awake he reviews the past year of his life: evading the law in the Czech Republic by running to Glasgow, settling into a borderline respectable relationship with his landlady, and getting back into the life at the very bottom of the criminal ladder, alongside Usman Kassar, a cocky, goofy kid anxious to prove himself. The job should be simple: Smash heads, grab cash, run. The trouble with being two outsiders is, you don´t always know whose heads are too dangerous to crack, or whose cash is too hot to handle... In sharp, precise prose, Malcolm Mackay -- an elegant stylist unmatched in contemporary noir (Chicago Tribune) -- captures the character of Glasgow and its underworld denizens.