Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks

Published by Canongate Books on March 5, 2020

Most police detectives in Alan Parks’ Glasgow are members of the Masonic Lodge. They look out for each other, not for justice. They are “ignorant arseholes, chucking their weight about, lining their own pockets, bending the law whichever way it suited them.” In the third Harry McCoy novel, McCoy is thinking he no longer wants to be a part of it. That’s not surprising, given the number of times he is beaten and nearly killed.

While most of the Glasgow police are searching for a missing girl named Alice Kelly, McCoy is called to a hotel to deal with a suspicious death. The victim turns out to be Bobby March, dead of an overdose, the needle still in his arm. The evidence suggests he might have been murdered.

Bobby March was an immensely talented guitar player from Glasgow who impressed Keith Richards while auditioning for the Rolling Stones. He quickly became a has-been thanks to a heroin habit, although he still had a loyal following of Glaswegians.

McCoy isn’t looking for Alice because his former partner and current boss, Bernie Raeburn, is trying to force him out of his job. Raeburn eventually assigns McCoy to investigate unsolved burglaries while Raeburn hopes to get the glory of finding Alice’s abductor.

McCoy’s other task is to look for the chief inspector’s niece, Laura Murray, who ran away from home. That task brings McCoy into a family drama he’d rather avoid, although it also brings him into the Glasgow music scene, where he encounters his former girlfriend Angela, who currently works as a band manager and drug dealer. He also encounters his childhood friend, Stevie Cooper, who is now a heroin addict and a key player in the Glasgow underworld. Cooper is distressed to learn that someone is trying to blackmail him.

Much of the plot concerns Raeburn’s effort to fit up a young man named Ronnie Elder for Alice’s murder. Suffice it to say that McCoy is less than pleased with Raeburn’s desire to get the glory of an arrest even if he doesn’t arrest the right person. As police in all countries have learned, it’s easier to beat a confession out of an innocent person than to find the guilty party. That plot thread ends with a violent confrontation between McCoy and Raeburn.

Along the way, Parks ties up the plot threads involving March’s death, Laura’s disappearance, and Cooper’s blackmail problem. The resolutions are refreshingly credible. The story is tightly woven despite its many threads. Parks gives ample attention to characterization and paints a vibrant picture of the Glasgow music scene. As is often true of crime novels from the UK, Parks doesn’t glorify the police. In fact, Parks makes it clear that Glasgow’s cops and criminals all come from the same roots and that they’re very much alike, despite the paths they’ve chosen. McCoy has faults of his own, but a lack of decency or compassion isn’t one of them. He’s a likable protagonist.

Parks balances mystery, suspense and action in a story has a little something for everyone — except, perhaps, for fans of quilting mysteries, for whom the novel is probably too dark. Bobby March Will Live Forever is the third McCoy novel but the first I’ve read. It makes me think that crime novel fans might want to start at the beginning and read all three.

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