To Die in June
From the winner of the MWA Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Mystery, Alan Parks, comes a new, gripping installment in the gritty Glasgow-based Harry McCoy series.
A woman enters a Glasgow police station to report her son missing, but no record can be found of the boy. When Detective Harry McCoy, who is on temporary transfer from a station across town, discovers the family is part of the cultish Church of Christ's Suffering, he suspects there is more to the boy's disappearance than meets the eye.
Meanwhile reports arrive of a string of poisonings of down-and-outs across the city. The dead are men who few barely notice, let alone care about--but, as McCoy is painfully aware, among this desperate community is his own father.
Even as McCoy searches for the missing boy, he must conceal from his colleagues the real reason for his presence--to investigate corruption in the station. Some people pray for justice, but Detective Harry McCoy hasn't got time to wait for God's divine intervention.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
Before beginning his writing career, Alan Parks was Creative Director at London Records and Warner Music, where he marketed and managed artists including All Saints, New Order, The Streets, Gnarls Barkley, and Cee Lo Green. His love of music, musician lore, and even the industry, comes through in his prize-winning mysteries, which are saturated with the atmosphere of the 1970s music scene, grubby and drug-addled as it often was. Parks' debut novel, Bloody January, propelled him onto the international literary crime fiction circuit and won him praise, prizes, and success with readers. In 2022 the third book in the Harry McCoy series, Bobby March Will Live Forever, won the MWA Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. Parks was born in Scotland, earned an M.A. in Moral Philosophy from the University of Glasgow, and still lives and works in the city he so vividly depicts in his Harry McCoy thrillers.
"To Die in June pulls no punches--nor stabbings nor mutilations. Harry does what he can to fight his own demons and to bring assemblance of justice to Glasgow's grisly streets. Mr. Parks's hero is a spiritually damaged man, albeit one who perceives a wee spark of light glistening in the gloom."--Wall Street Journal
"A fine sense of wordplay and the Scots dialect furnishes a mild, dark comic aspect to what is a surprisingly pleasant read, given the grim background and action. Parks is a master of the genre and always provides a good story. This will be the fifth in the series and this reader recommends them all highly. As always, trust Europa to furnish quality literature."--Reading the West
"Parks' gritty, panoramic novel particularly rewards series fans by deepening the stories of several returning characters...Sharp and bracing Scottish noir, with a streak of dark nostalgia."--Kirkus Reviews
"A provocative, disturbing read that will lead readers to consider the nature of good and evil and whether there's a difference between doing what's right and doing what's good."--Booklist
Praise for May God Forgive
★ "Noir has long been the dominant color in the palette of such Scottish writers as Ian Rankin and Denise Mina, but Parks manages to find a deeper shade of black, only slightly attenuated by Harry's willingness to go far off the grid to extract a wee bit of justice."--Booklist (Starred Review)
★ "A Glasgow native, Parks provides a crisp, authentic look and feel to the back alleys, rough neighborhoods, and ramshackle tenements of his hometown. This entry ranks with the best of Ian Rankin and Stuart MacBride."--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Harry McCoy is the brightest dark star on the Tartan Noir scene for some time and in future critics of Scottish crime fiction will surely be referring to the triumvirate of Laidlaw, Rebus and McCoy... May God Forgive is crime fiction which pulls no punches, powerfully told and, at times, heartbreakingly poignant... One of the crime novels of 2022."--Mike Ripley, Getting Away With Murder
"The fifth Harry McCoy thriller is as punchy, compulsive and, at times, as downright nasty as ever."--The Herald Scotland
Praise for the Detective Harry McCoy Thriller Series
"The meticulously described setting is so suggestive readers may even catch whiffs of stale cigarette smoke and patchouli. Fans of Scottish noir will be satisfied."--Publishers Weekly
"Parks' sprawling plot offers not tidy whodunit puzzles but a wide-angle view of a gritty city in the grip of crime, home to an entertaining cross section of characters. Broad-shouldered McCoy is suitably unflappable as he walks Glasgow's mean streets."--Kirkus Reviews
"Parks captures the feel of a city long vanished in a breathless and tense retro crime caper."--The Sun
"A series that no crime fan should miss: dangerous, thrilling, but with a kind voice to cut through the darkness."--Scotsman
"Pitch-black tartan noir, set in 70s Glasgow...Compelling...with an emotional heart that's hard to ignore."--Daily Mail
