A dark gripping crime story that really hit to the core set against the back drop of Glasgow. If you like blood and gore and nitty gritty crime novels then you will love this as it spared no punches and really got to the heart of the matter without dressing it up with frills. This book would make a good crime series on tv. It really got to heart of what happens during a horrific crime and how dark and deep things can get for all and graphically describes what McCoy is against in 1970's Glasgow deep in the mid winter when he sets about investigating his latest crime drugs, deaths, kidnappings you name it and it is in there. This book was the second in a series but was perfectly ok to be read as a standalone as I hadn't read the previous book or any others by this author before.