Disordered Daggers : The Night the Rich Men Burned by Malcolm Mackay (2014)
(Steel, shortlisted.) This was my first experience of Malcolm Mackay, an author who has, in the last couple of years, made his name with a particular strain of crime fiction - terse, grim dispatches of the power struggles of criminal empires in Glasgow. This is billed as Mackay’s first standalone novel, so a good jumping point - although I see his next book picks up from a key event that takes place at the end of this one.
“The Night the Rich Men Burned” is forensic in its account of the mixed fortunes of two twenty year old friends. Oliver Peterkinney uses every opportunity that comes his way to get into the debt collecting business ; Alex Glass helps Oliver out on his first criminal errand, and then finds himself sidelined as Oliver forges ahead. Mackay sketches in the contending factions in the world Peterkinney plunges into - the bosses, the enforcers, the debtors. Mackay’s style is stripped bare of specifics of time and place - this could be any city, any country - but is scrupulous in the detail of the emotional states of his corrupt businessmen. It’s all about face, all about fine margins, all about reputation. There is really just one ‘civilian’ character, Peterkinney’s grandfather, and he too finds himself compromised.
“The Night the Rich Men Burned” is bracing but depressing reading, and the first book in my Dagger reading this year to comprehensively fail the Bechdel Test. Mackay’s world is disturbing, realistic, downbeat, violent, and compelling, not to all tastes, and I’m not entirely sure that it’s one I’ll be returning to in the future.
“The Night the Rich Men Burned” is forensic in its account of the mixed fortunes of two twenty year old friends. Oliver Peterkinney uses every opportunity that comes his way to get into the debt collecting business ; Alex Glass helps Oliver out on his first criminal errand, and then finds himself sidelined as Oliver forges ahead. Mackay sketches in the contending factions in the world Peterkinney plunges into - the bosses, the enforcers, the debtors. Mackay’s style is stripped bare of specifics of time and place - this could be any city, any country - but is scrupulous in the detail of the emotional states of his corrupt businessmen. It’s all about face, all about fine margins, all about reputation. There is really just one ‘civilian’ character, Peterkinney’s grandfather, and he too finds himself compromised.
“The Night the Rich Men Burned” is bracing but depressing reading, and the first book in my Dagger reading this year to comprehensively fail the Bechdel Test. Mackay’s world is disturbing, realistic, downbeat, violent, and compelling, not to all tastes, and I’m not entirely sure that it’s one I’ll be returning to in the future.