At the end of 1903, in a tough, working-class town in the West of Scotland, Tam Docherty's youngest son, Conn is born. Tam is determined that life and the pits c won't swallow up his boy the way it has him. Courageous and questioning, Docherty emerges as a leader of almost indomitable strength, but in a close-knit community tradition is a powerful opponent.

Docherty

William McIlvanney

Sceptre

The titles in the "Textplus" series, designed to reflect the changing nature of English Literature at advanced post-GCSE level, offer the complete text with a specially commissioned introduction and compact background notes placing the work in historical and critical context. Together, these components are intended to open up the text for students, allowing them to plot their own course of study, to plan extended projects, to compare writers' perspectives on similar themes and to relate works to key social and historical phenomena.

Docherty (Textplus)

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

Hodder Arnold H&S

Strange Loyalties

A new Jack Laidlaw novel from the author of "Docherty", "The Big Man" and "Walking Wounded".

Strange loyalties

Hodder&Stoughton Ltd

Alone in a rented flat in Edinburgh in the 1990s, Tom Docherty calls up the past like a necromancer, reliving the summer of 1955 - the summer of the kiln. Then he was seventeen, with school behind him, a holiday job at a Graithnock brick work, and his life before him. As he recalls the intellectual and sexual awakening of his youth and the paths he took as an adult, he discovers that only by understanding where he comes from can he make sense of his life. William McIlvanney portrays a man weighing up the balance of his life with unflinching honesty. It is a remarkable portrait, drawn with razor-sharp humour, wisdom and compassion by a masterful writer.

The Kiln

TRAFALGAR SQUARE +

Weekend

In a Victorian mansion hotel on a Scottish island, a group of English Literature lecturers and students from Glasgow gather for a study weekend, though studying is not exactly what some of them have in mind. And the weekend does prove to be a major turning point in the emotional lives of several people -- just not quite in the way any of them expected. As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, William McIlvanney's novel brilliantly illustrates how humans are driven by animal instincts, but have the mental capacity to analyse, harness and rue them. Which also means we continue to dream, even when our dreams fail us.

Literature & Fiction

Literary

The longships in harbour: Poems

TBS The Book Service Ltd

The Dark Remains

In this scorching crime collaboration, bestselling author Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of DI Laidlaw, Glasgow’s original gritty detective. Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people. Now he’s dead and it was no accident. Besides a distraught family and a heap of powerful friends, Carter’s left behind his share of enemies. So, who dealt the fatal blow? DC Jack Laidlaw’s reputation precedes him. He’s not a team player, but he’s got a sixth sense for what’s happening on the streets. His boss chalks the violence up to the usual rivalries, but is it that simple? As two Glasgow gangs go to war, Laidlaw needs to find out who got Carter before the whole city explodes. William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw books changed the face of crime fiction. When he died in 2015, he left half a handwritten manuscript of Laidlaw’s first case. Now, Ian Rankin is back to finish what McIlvanney started. In The Dark Remains, these two iconic authors bring to life the criminal world of 1970s Glasgow, and Laidlaw’s relentless quest for truth.

IAN RANKIN

MCCLELLAND STEWART

Gift from Nessus (New Portway Reprints)

Chivers Press

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Books by William McIlvanney