Warning: include_once(./inc/right.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/campbell/public_html/inc/index.php on line 40

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening './inc/right.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php') in /home/campbell/public_html/inc/index.php on line 40

BUTCHER - by Campbell Armstrong

Reviews of BUTCHER, published July 2006 by Alison & Busby, London.

Lou Perlman is a Glasgow Jew who gets twitchy if he strays too far form his native city. If you like British TV cop show Taggart ("ah'm gonnae get him fur mairrrrder!"), you'll lap up Campbell Armstrong's BUTCHER.

Perlman's a rumpled cop who's currently on sick leave after stopping a bullet in a previous book (this is the third in the series and on this evidence the other two are well worth searching out). But he's in disgrace after speaking up in court in favour of his sister-in-law Miriam, and won't be welcomed back with open arms.

Miriam, meanwhile, has gone swanning off round Europe, leaving Lou uncertain as to where they stand romantically -- and he starts to worry when her postcards suddenly stop. His aunts are clucking around solicitously, and send over a cleaning lady to help him get his shambolic home into some sort of shape.

But when he and hippy cleaner Betty McLatchie make a gruesome discovery in his tip of a bedroom, things aren't looking too hot for Lou.

Add together Betty's missing son, a New Age gangster with a guru and big ideas, a mad 'surgeon', a recluse and his pet ferret, and you have one hell of a good read.

Lou's a wonderfully lugubrious character -- the kind you can imagine Ken Stott playing. And around him Campbell has created a memorable supporting cast, with all sorts of cops and lowlives popping in and out for neat cameos. Reuben Chuck, the gangster with some contradictory values in his private life, is a decidedly nasty bit of work.

The fact that Chuck is trying to grab the top position in Glasgow's underworld is giving police plenty to think about. A trail of body parts around the city, thanks to this mysterious 'surgeon' isn't helping either.

This is the Glasgow you see in Denise Mina's books -- dark, dingy, violent and with people barely existing. The best scenes are those in Dorcus's house, with the creepy Nurse Payne (and the faintest hint of woo-woo which had me looking over my shoulder when the lights flickered), and those in Tarkatower's squat.

Armstrong is a masterful writer, with a gift for storytelling and pacing, and an eye for detail -- the little ferret with his shampooed coat was my personal favourite. BUTCHER is a must-read if you like tough, gritty crime fiction with a memorable hero.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, July 2006;   reviewingtheevidence.com/.

Campbell Armstrong- the literary equivalent of an AK47

Campbell Armstrong- the literary equivalent of an AK47-is back with another high octane magnificent grit-fest that sprays out plot strands like bullets. Several dead bodies,a crimeworld coup,a missing person,an absent love interest,a hand that seems to have misplaced the rest of its body and a headless corpse in a clown suit. And thats just in the first 50 pages. Not to mention an endearingly carnaptious detective who makes Mark McManus's Taggart look chipper. Lou Perlman doesn't do romance.He doesn't do authority.He definitely doesn't do housework.But he is in a class of his own.

Review by Shari Lowe, Daily Record (Glasgow).

Warning: include_once(./inc/footer.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/campbell/public_html/inc/index.php on line 130

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening './inc/footer.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php5/lib/php') in /home/campbell/public_html/inc/index.php on line 130