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I was accompanying my wife to the local Moreland Library in August 2015 while she picked some books so I went browsing myself and came across two relatively short books by author Malcolm Mackay that sounded interesting. It turned out they were the first two books in a trilogy, set in Glasgow, about freelance hit man Callum MacLean. Overall, the trilogy makes one complete story of just over 1000 pages but it is easy to read. Once I read the first two, I reserved and picked up the third book from the library and devoured it.
His strengths as a writer are on display in the first paragraph of the opening novel, the one in which a drug dealer named Lewis Winter will indeed have to die:
“It starts with a telephone call. Casual, chatty, friendly, no business. You arrange to meet, neutral venue, preferably public. You have to be careful, regardless of the caller, regardless of the meeting place. Every eventuality planned for, nothing taken for granted. Tempting to begin to trust; tempting, but wrong. A person could be your friend and confidant for twenty years and then turn away from you in an instant. It happens. Anyone with sense remembers that bitter reality; those without sense will learn it.”
By the third volume, MacLean wants to opt out of the killing game, but excusing himself turns out to be far harder than he would like. Spending so much time with this coldblooded killer is often disturbing but, in the end, surprisingly rewarding.
There is not really any character development but the story itself is gripping, even if depressing. I would recommend this trilogy to anyone wanting a different sort of read.
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