The Night the Rich Men Burned

Set in Glasgow, Mackay’s gritty, complex crime thriller centers on childhood friends Oliver Peterkinney and Alex Glass. Both 19 and jobless, Oliver and Alex agree to rough up a man for sleazy moneylender Marty Jones, who’s known for his wild parties. As Alex’s attention is diverted by a prostitute named Ella, Oliver rises in the ranks, eventually branching out on his own in the less than legal world of debt collecting. Trouble brews elsewhere as competing members of Glasgow’s older breed of criminals, men like Ronald “Potty” Cruickshank and Alex MacArthur, struggle to hold on to their places in a changing world when ruthless new blood like Billy Patterson and even kids like Oliver start staking claims. But in the end, this poisonous life “kills the good people first, then the bad,” and Mackay (The Sudden Arrival of Violence) skillfully blurs the line between the two until the characters are all just people, fighting to survive another day. [em]Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Company. (May) [/em]