Gunner - Alan Parks

Alan Parks has left his Glasgow detective Harry McCoy at his lowest point midway through the series in To Die in June. He's in a really bad place, the cumulative effects of his profession, the declining state of Glasgow to gangsters, drug dealers and all kinds of social problems in the 1970s. Combined with an alcohol problem, family and personal difficulties, it's not looking too good for Parks' detective. But while we wait for McCoy to pull himself out of a very dark hole, the author turns the clock back and turns his attention to Glasgow in an earlier period during the WWII bombing raids on the city and its shipyards where, frankly, it wasn't exactly a paradise then either.

Nor is Joe Gunner in any better state than McCoy. Just returned from Dunkirk, partly shell shocked, leg and face ripped apart by shrapnel, he is met at St. Enoch train station by his old chief Drummond. Nether of them should be police officers, but due to the war Drummond has been pulled out of retirement and Gunner is the only person he can rely on to help with a dead body found in the rubble of Kilmun Street after a German bombing raid on the city and the Clydebank shipyards the previous night. There are a lot of dead bodies in Kilmun Street and elsewhere across the city, but this one has been badly beaten about the head and face, with fingers removed, making identification - clearly intentionally - difficult.

Gunner has seen some sights recently, but even this is a bit much. Not having much alternative however, he agrees to help investigate. It's a different Glasgow from the one he left behind to go and fight in France, the war now coming to his home city. His brother Victor, a conscientious objector (a "conchie"), is on the run, prison camps have been set up to hold ordinary foreign nationals from hostile nations who have lived there for years as well as suspected Nazi spies. Indeed, there is the worrying suspicion that the unidentified and unidentifiable body they have found might well be a German national, something that is undoubtedly going to bring Gunner and Drummond a lot of unwanted attention from high up in the military command in Westminster.

There's no getting around the fact that Gunner is in many respects just an alternative period Harry McCoy. Drummond is not that far removed from Chief Inspector Murray and Special Auxiliary Fraser Lockhart looks very much like the equivalent for Wattie; young and enthusiastic, willing to learn, willing to bring a fresh outlook on old ways of investigation. Similar maybe, but there are significant differences. As for Gunner, he also has a lot of McCoy’s characteristics. Self-medicating because of his war wounds, he has plenty of experience and contacts in the ‘polis’ and in the crime underworld, and is in trouble with one of the local gangsters he got locked up who is now out of prison. Gunner uses similar methods of policing, sometimes uses a little extra force to right injustices in places where the law won't go, often pushes his luck poking his nose into things he should leave well alone. He does seems to get even more severe beatings over the course of this one novel than McCoy typically does.

There is nothing that is radically new here and I'm not sure I’d want anything else from Alan Parks (except maybe a Harry McCoy thriller with 'July' in the title), so personally I find this a wonderful 'side extension' of that series, almost like a prequel with a historical cast from another district lying behind the 1970s world of Alan Parks' main body of work. It adds depth to the Glasgow he depicts in the McCoy series (and that in itself sheds some light on the Glasgow of the present day, or at least the more recent past), but even in its own right, what is most familiar and welcome about Gunner is the writing. It simply flows and carries you along, inviting you to read as much as you can in one sitting, with realistic characters, authentic dialogue, very real dangers, a compelling police crime mystery thriller that highlights and fills in the reality of the world and the context of how social inequality is a breeding ground for crime, not just in Glasgow but in the UK and no doubt elsewhere.

For all the similarities with McCoy and their associated strengths in Parks writing, there is another surprising real life historical wartime mystery to Gunner that sets this apart and brings another terrific edge and character to this one-off(?) book. Plenty of surprises, absolutely not a moment of downtime, no place to set the book down, this is just fantastic thriller writing.

Reading notes: Gunner by Alan Parks is published by John Murray Press/Baskerville on 17th July 2025. My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy. I think I've made as much mention of McCoy as Joe Gunner in this review, but I make no excuses for that as it's one of the best police thriller series out there and I'm looking forward eagerly (and not without some trepidation considering where we last left McCoy) to the next book in the series. I have to say though I'm not at all disappointed with the diversion to Gunner here, as it shows that Parks has a lot more to offer as a writer. The book cover's sub heading of 'A Joseph Gunner Thriller' suggests that there might be more to come from this period of Glasgow history, and that's also something to look forward to.