It's doubtful I would be a crime writer without the influence of McIlvanney's Laidlaw -- IAN RANKIN

His Laidlaw is an enduring hero with the dry wit and insight to make other literary detectives seem two-dimensional -- GORDON FERRIS

The Laidlaw books are not just great crime novels, they are important ones -- MARK BILLINGHAM

Transfixing - * Sunday Times *

He kicked the door open so the likes of Ian Rankin, Denise Mina and me could sneak through behind him -- VAL McDERMID

The pure distilled essence of Scottish crime writing -- PETER MAY

A crime trilogy so searing it will burn forever into your memory. McIlvanney is the original Scottish criminal mastermind -- CHRISTOPHER BROOKMYRE

The good news is that Laidlaw is back - * Observer *

In a class of his own - * Guardian *

Reads like a breathless scalpel cut through the bloody heart of a city -- DENISE MINA

WILLIAM McILVANNEY's first novel, Remedy is None, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and with Docherty he won the Whitbread Award for Fiction. Laidlaw and The Papers of Tony Veitch both gained Silver Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association. Strange Loyalties, the third in the Detective Laidlaw trilogy, won the Glasgow Herald's People's Prize. McIlvanney died in December 2015.