Liam McIlvanney books

Anthologies

Conway Trilogy Reading Order

Duncan McCormack Reading Order

Jack Laidlaw Reading Order

Non-Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poems/Short Story Collections Reading Order

Saltire Reading Order

Standalone Novels

This page covers the works of both Liam McIlvanney and his father William McIlvanney. The two are connected through the Jack Laidlaw series, which William created in 1977 and which Liam continued after his father’s death in 2015. The Dark Remains (2021), the fourth Laidlaw novel, was completed by Liam from an unfinished manuscript William had left behind.

Liam McIlvanney is a Scottish crime writer and academic. His Conway Trilogy – beginning with All the Colours of the Town (2009) – follows journalist Gerry Conway through Scottish crime and politics. His Duncan McCormack series, starting with The Quaker (2018), is set in 1960s Glasgow and won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. Liam has also published several works of non-fiction and literary criticism, including Burns the Radical (2002).

William McIlvanney (1936-2015) is widely regarded as the founder of “Tartan Noir,” the tradition of Scottish crime fiction. His novel Laidlaw (1977) introduced Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw of Glasgow CID and is considered a landmark in British crime writing. Beyond crime fiction, William was an acclaimed literary novelist – Docherty (1975) won the Whitbread Novel Award – and a respected poet and essayist. His Saltire Society publications, poetry collections, and essays round out a body of work that shaped Scottish literature for decades.