‘Half the Glasgow polis think DI Alison McCoist is bent. The other half just think she’s a fuck up.
No one thinks very much at all about car wash employee Davey Burnet until one day he takes the wrong customer’s motor for a ride.
One kidnapping later, he and the car, wash, are officially part of Glasgow’s criminal underworld, working for a psychopath who enjoys playing games like “Keep yer Kneecaps” with any poor bastard who crosses him.
Can Davey escape from the gang’s clutches with his kneecaps and life intact?
Perhaps this polis Ally McCoist who keeps roaming round the car wash could help. That’s if she doesn’t get herself killed first.’
I love the irony of this title, for there is little that is remotely clean in this hard-boiled thriller from an exciting debut novelist, Callum McSorley.
DI Alison McCoist, demoted in task if not rank, is almost but not quite a hapless heroine in this brutal and dark tale of Glasgow’s OC world. There are comedic overtones but it’s one of these books where you find yourself almost feeling guilty for chuckling.
A Glasgow car wash is the central location for much of the action with owner Sean and employees Davey and Tim playing central roles, especially Davey who can’t quite keep on the right side of life.
It would be unfair to give too much of the plot away, but be prepared for some buttock clenching bloodshed, and much tension. It’s an intricate plot and the reader joins alongside McCoist as she unravels the nefarious antics of Glasgow’s underworld, running on hunches and instinct.
Davey was one of those characters, where you find yourself, frequently, almost yelling at the book, no, no, don’t do it! But invariably he does. It is an action of his, that is the catalyst for what happens in the bulk of the novel.
Ally is a very likeable character. Fallen from grace on a previous case, she seems to spend the book trying to redeem herself, not just to the police force, but to her family as well. I understand that this is going to be the first in a series and I’m looking forward to seeing what Ally gets up to next.
These two characters drive the narrative forward. That’s not to say it’s a character lead book, not at all, there’s a great deal of action, not all of it pleasant. But they provide an interesting contrast with each other.
It’s well paced, confident writing that urges you to read on and on to the book’s conclusion.
Callum McSorley is a writer based in Glasgow, whose short stories have appeared in Gutter Magazine, Monstrous Regiment and New Writing Scotland. Squeaky Clean is his debut novel.
My thanks to Kate Wilkinson at Pushkin Press for a gifted copy of the book, and a place upon the blog tour.
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