The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter

‘Cool, laconic and very enjoyable. I look forward eagerly to the second novel in the trilogy’ Allan Massie

‘A very auspicious debut, this is an amazing novel, incredibly gripping from the first page to the last. A vivid portrait of the Glasgow underworld, it’s completely hypnotic . . . like the great writers, people like Elmore Leonard, Mackay paints really vivid portraits of his characters . . . a really unique voice’ Mark Billingham

‘A really clever multi-viewpoint novel about the Glasgow underworld . . . The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter was a real revelation, a real find for me’ Kate Mosse

‘A dark, rich, brutal thriller . . . it absolutely captivates you. The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is more than a page turner, it’s a page ripper. For a debut novel this sparkles, this zings, it leaps off the page. If you like Ian Rankin, if you like Stuart MacBride, if you like Val McDermid, Denise Mina – Malcolm Mackay is right up there’ Peter James

‘Glasgow’s a tough city and this is a tough book . . . very authentic, very gritty, you can really feel the streets. They call this genre Tartan Noir and absolutely The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is a first class member of that’ Lee Child

‘I finished it almost in a sitting. The prose is spare and taut and pulls the reader into the minds of the disparate characters . . . beautifully and truthfully written with the deceptive simplicity of a fine short story’ Ann Cleeves, creator of VERA

‘A remarkably original debut . . . this is a book that it would be hard not to finish in one sitting . . . a wholly believable and unnerving portrait of organised crime’ Observer

‘The debut writer who is being hailed as tartan noir’s most authoritative and authentic new voice . . . Mackay writes in a tough-guy style that is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett at their most hard-boiled’ Scotsman