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A review by lachesisreads
The Second Cut by Louise Welsh
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Edinburgh has Inspector Rebus, genteel and a little sad; Glasgow has Rilke, always chasing his next Grindr match while trying to stay afloat.
At a time when novels with gay protagonists often come with pink covers, Welsh shows us a different side to what it means being gay: the slurs, the sexually motivated violence, oppression and danger from without and within the community.
Welsh portrays the seedy, the dark, the animalistic ugliness of human desires, be they sex, money or oblivion. The Second Cut's Glasgow is not the 'dear green place', it's a character in its own, dark and despicable and yet strangely alluring, and always vaguely threatening.
Her masterly use of the weather plays into this effortlessly; it is always raining or about to, it is cold and dreary (dreich, a word I had forgotten I knew), and reading it one feels it never gets warm, or even properly light, all through the book. We cling to Glasgow's seedy underbelly, and it is wet with slushy mud.
There is a mystery - two mysteries entwined - in this story, but against the rich backdrop of the lives of the people we follow throughout the book, they almost take second rate; not the sleuth's personal problems as a backdrop to the crime they solve, but the other way around.
The build-up of the tension towards the end is impeccable; you both desperately need to read on and yet don't want to know; and against this the denouement felt a little flat, too easy; but then it is not the roaring thriller that needs a big show-down with bangs and bombs, so perhaps this was fitting in the end and a parallel to the lives lived in this book: full of potential and expectation that cannot be fully realised.
There are many very descriptive passages, and converations are also interspersed with generous helpings of description. It's all good description and helps set the rich mood of the book, but it does get a bit much and at times took me out of the reading experience.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys literary mysteries/thrillers with dark realism but low on the graphic violence/gore scale.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free review copy of this book. All opinions here expressed are my own.
At a time when novels with gay protagonists often come with pink covers, Welsh shows us a different side to what it means being gay: the slurs, the sexually motivated violence, oppression and danger from without and within the community.
Welsh portrays the seedy, the dark, the animalistic ugliness of human desires, be they sex, money or oblivion. The Second Cut's Glasgow is not the 'dear green place', it's a character in its own, dark and despicable and yet strangely alluring, and always vaguely threatening.
Her masterly use of the weather plays into this effortlessly; it is always raining or about to, it is cold and dreary (dreich, a word I had forgotten I knew), and reading it one feels it never gets warm, or even properly light, all through the book. We cling to Glasgow's seedy underbelly, and it is wet with slushy mud.
There is a mystery - two mysteries entwined - in this story, but against the rich backdrop of the lives of the people we follow throughout the book, they almost take second rate; not the sleuth's personal problems as a backdrop to the crime they solve, but the other way around.
The build-up of the tension towards the end is impeccable; you both desperately need to read on and yet don't want to know; and against this the denouement felt a little flat, too easy; but then it is not the roaring thriller that needs a big show-down with bangs and bombs, so perhaps this was fitting in the end and a parallel to the lives lived in this book: full of potential and expectation that cannot be fully realised.
There are many very descriptive passages, and converations are also interspersed with generous helpings of description. It's all good description and helps set the rich mood of the book, but it does get a bit much and at times took me out of the reading experience.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys literary mysteries/thrillers with dark realism but low on the graphic violence/gore scale.
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free review copy of this book. All opinions here expressed are my own.