A review by zog_the_frog
Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney

3.0

I'd read "The papers of Tony Veitch" and "Laidlaw" many years ago and really enjoyed them. This I didn't enjoy so much. It's a very introspective book allegedly about the detective investigating his brother's death, but is more about the detective, Laidlaw investigating his own life. For me there were far too many characters in the book who were either not fleshed out enough or were merely background wallpaper for McIlvanney's writing. A lot of the writing I enjoyed although at time it became just too wordy. For literary content and pithy comments it gets 5 stars. For pure content as a story it gets 1 star. Average 3 stars