Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks

Welcome to Day 3 of the Blogtour for Alan Parks' 3rd Harry McCoy thriller Bobby March Will Live Forever.

The Bobby March of the title is a local boy turned rock god who is found dead from a drugs overdose in his hotel room after his 'homecoming' gig. McCoy is investigating this case as well as a series of bank robberies while his colleagues are searching for a missing girl (a case McCoy has been banned from by his corrupt boss).

And on the side McCoy is also searching for the Chief Inspector's nie e (strictly off the books).

In other hands this could be a rather 'busy' and confusing book but Parks does a good job of keeping everything ticking over nicely. The story of March's rise and decline, interspersed throughout the story helps break things up I guess.

The setting for this series (so far) is 1973 Glasgow and it is not a pleasant place. A dirty, grimy city, full of corruption and crime, ganglords and bent coppers. No, not a pleasant place by any stretch of the imagination but Parks (forgive the cliché) brings it to life on the page - and I love it!

When I first got asked to review this I looked at the other titles in the series and decided to start from the beginning. I'm glad I did as themes run through the series but each can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Final point, I've seen these books billed as Tartan Noir - don't be fooled by that, they aren't 'noir' they are absolutely Tartan Pitch Black and Alan Parks is a major talent.

5.5/5* Very Highly Recommended

Thanks as always to Anne Cater for inviting me onto this tour, Cannongate books for supplying the review copy and please, if you can, try and have a look at the other blog posts by the reviewers on this tour.