Malcolm MacKay Books In Order

Publication Order of Glasgow Underworld Books

Publication Order of Saviors Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

On a regular basis, hundreds of books are published, but keeping up with the originality of the story and some imagination embedded in them, not every book can get noticed. The crime fiction series written by Scottish writer Malcolm Mackay is something that has received praise for not only being original but also highly fresh and intriguing to read. Malcolm Mackay was born on 1 January 1982, in a small town of Stornoway in Scotland’s Isle of Lewis. He still lives there and has been to Glasgow quite a few times, but much of his work is based on the underground gangs found in Glasgow. He was diagnosed with ME at a very early age and was home-schooled for much of his life. As expressed by him, all his workings might not have been possible if he had left the small isolated town of Stornoway and went to a university to some other place.

Much of his work has been the result of his imagination and fascination with American crime fiction, mainly that came from the famed writers Jim Thompson, Graham Greene, and Dashiell Hammett. Thompson’s work in Pop. 1280, where he makes a psychopathic character highly likable and at the same time charming and lovable, is something Mackay may never forget. It gave inspiration to Mr. Mackay to write about his own character Calum MacLean, part of his Glasgow Trilogy. Mr. Mackay rose to fame with his crime novel trilogy, which as stated by many of his critics, was astonishingly fresh to read, unlike any other crime fiction novel before them. His work on ‘The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter’, ‘How a Gunman Says Goodbye’, and ‘The Sudden Arrival of Violence’ have made their mark across borders. These works had been nominated for numerous awards since their arrival in 2013. In 2013, his sequel ‘How a Gunman Says Goodbye’ received the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year award. Mr. Mackay was surprised to win the award and thought he was just promoted to sit with all the grown-ups. Other nominees for the award were veteran writers Ann Cleeves, Ian Rankin and Gordon Ferris. Later in 2015, the Glasgow Trilogy found its way to the Boston Globe’s 2015 Best Books of the Year list in the mystery category, while the first book of the trilogy, ‘The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter’ was also nominated for the 2016 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. This was not a coincidence, but the result of the work Mr. Mackay has produced, narrating the cycle of life present amongst the ganglands of Glasgow’s underworld and crime life.

Mr. Mackay has always narrated on how his isolation helped him write these crime fictions from his bedroom. Like any other first book, the character Glasgow Trilogy revolves around, read the same books, and played the same video games as Mr. Mackay did. The first book ‘The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter’, gives us a snapshot of the life of a hitman named Calum Maclean, who has been beaten so many times by the unusual events of life, he has become resistant and good at his job at killing people. The book is a story developing amongst Calum Maclean’s boss, a victim that is to be killed and himself. Calum is a character who as per Mr. Mackay deserves some pity at the end, as the events that shaped him had made him weak after others have used him. However, Calum Maclean is good at his job of killing people and has a professional code, although it is not moral by any means. Mr. Mackay used Glasgow as the base city in the novel, but none of the details are real, nor they are fictitious. They are a blend of imagination and analysis of how a small city crime might be like. The other two sequels show how Calum Maclean shapes his life from following footsteps of another hitman, while in the last novel, he wishes to leave it all but finds it hard after all those years of following a professional code.

Other books written by Mr. Mackay include, ‘Every Night I Dream of Hell’, and ‘For Those Who Know the Ending’. Like the Glasgow Trilogy, published in 2015 as the fifth novel of Mr. Mackay, ‘Every Night I Dream of Hell’ also revolves around Glasgow’s small town underground crime scenario. Mr. Mackay has given it the same fast paced storyline that readers have been accustomed to, making the pages fly as the readers indulge within the new characters of Jamieson Organization. A new character Nate Colgan has become the security consultant for the organization after most of the bosses are behind bars or dead. The story is of a new group, and their struggle to keep themselves relevant in the ongoing world of violence, as DI Fisher returns with unknown motives after killing or putting behind bars many of Jamieson leaders. There is another character from the past Mr. Mackay has brought in, known as Zara Cope, ex-lover of Nate and the mother of his child, She might click those who have read ‘The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter’. Like Calum, Nate is also trying not to get indulged in any relationships which may end in hurt or distracting him from performing his duties. The sole reason why native has kept his daughter away from his shadows of the underworld.

Malcolm Mackay is one of the very few writers who has seen fame during the first years of their work. It is not because of the mystery writing genre that has always been loved, but because of the ability of Mr. Mackay to get all of his readers tied to a story line, which seems real and original, and distinct from all other crime fictions they have ever read. No matter Mr. Mackay has been to Glasgow very few times, but his work on the underworld and violence Glasgow has, makes us imagine how life would have been for the characters who lived in such a bloody fiasco of life, power, and death. Nevertheless, with such astounding novels, Mr. Mackey is for sure on his way to the hall of fame of the best mystery and crime scene novel writes of all time, including Dan Brown, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tom Clancy and Michael Connelly.