According to Keith Richards, BobbyMarch is the best guitarist to never officially play with The Rolling Stones. When he is found dead of a heroin overdose in not the nicest Glasgow hotel, #Bobby March Will Live Forever is off and running. Enter police inspector Harry McCoy, whose own career is currently floundering, as he attempts to sort matters out. Before long Harry is “ up to his ass in alligators “ in plots tangential to Bobby March’s death. Through flashbacks we are shown how March’s promising career disintegrates and then it’s back to 1973 where McCoy is working hard to make sure his career in the Glasgow police remains on track. With a roadblock at every turn of his investigations, this is no easy task. Peopled with enthralling characters, and with a fine depiction of the late 60’s, early 70’s music scene, #BobbyMarchWillLiveForever never lags, and Harry McCoy is a thoroughly engaging antagonist. Well Done !

Bobby March Will Live Forever finds McCoy tasked with resolving the circumstances of the overdose death of a rock star named Bobby March in a local hotel room . . . while a less competent but better connected peer is put in charge of finding a little girl who’s been abducted and possibly murdered. It’s a case that has the city on edge and the public demanding answers as the days pass, the heat wave continues with no relief in sight and no answers about the missing child. When the case is botched and an innocent, developmentally, disabled man is wrongfully accused of the crime . . . tempers reach the boiling point and Harry McCoy is put in charge in an effort to save face.
In the meantime, between the overdose and the abduction, McCoy is asked to covertly locate the police chief’s missing fifteen year old niece, who may be living with an up-and-coming drug-dealing young thug, who’s a promising gangster wannabe and probable killer.
The simultaneous searches grind on through the heat, abject poverty and unending serial violence in this outstanding Scottish Noir thriller and build to a powerful conclusion that will have readers looking for the next installment of the antihero detective named Harry McCoy. Author Alan Parks has a knack for description and an ear for dialect that will leave you almost sweating from the heat, hearing the sounds of the city and smelling the smoke from the dope being smoked, as well as the incense being burnt to cover it up!

This is the third book in the Harry McCoy series. I really like the creative title pattern which hints at a twelve book series.

I enjoyed this book more than the first. I didn’t read the second book but now have an interest to do so knowing this could be a longer series. My main issue is I am a ‘fish out of water’ with the Glasgow setting so I struggle with some of vocabulary and dialogue while reading it. - but maybe more books will get me there.

I like the series characters and I thought the plot was above average as it came to a final conclusion with a few good twists along the way.

For me, this is a series progressing in the right direction and hope it keeps building in a way a good trilogy does!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity in exchange for an honest review.

This continues what is, for me, a solid four-star series. Harry McCoy, a 70s Glasgow police officer, returns with another case (or five), while also juggling his shady gangland connections.

It took me a while to get onboard with the previous book in this series, February's Son. For a while, I felt like the gritty violence was being glamorised and its protagonist presented as suave and cool. The result was actually a really compelling picture of a cop in a messed up situation acting according to his own twisted sense of justice with surprising sensitivity, which works for the reader.

Bobby March Will Live Forever picks up that approach and carries it forward. I've read a fair few books which could be called Tartan Noir, but this series continues to do something I don't think I've seen before. Parks develops an interesting voice, which often relies on fragmented sentences and the investigations are not succinctly wrapped up, from the perspective of the characters at least. While the reader sees the whole picture, the police remain in the dark.

In some cases, McCoy simply decides not to pursue justice where he uncovers the culprit. In one investigation, he demonstrates little impetus in reaching a solution. A flashback informs the reader of what happened, but McCoy doesn't really care and the case peters out.

I have two big issues with the novel. Firstly, I'm not sure what significance the Bobby March case has for the rest of the plot. There's little substance to it, especially being only one strand of many. Why it should be deemed important enough to be the title, I don't know. Perhaps it's merely so that Parks can continue his naming trend.

Secondly, movements forward in the plot rely far too heavily on coincidence. In at least four instances that I can think of, a breakthrough is made by the antihero because he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, very much against the odds.

I very much intend to continue with this series. Don't read it if you value closure, but check it out if you're looking for a messy yet realistic take on a chaotic period of Glasgow's history.

Bobby March Will Live Forever is the third book in the Harry McCoy series by British author, Alan Parks. Mid-July 1973, and Glasgow swelters through an unusually hot summer, but any personnel at Stewart Street Police Station not departed on vacation have joined the search for missing thirteen-year-old, Alice Kelly.

Except for DS Harry McCoy. CI Hector Murray has been seconded to Central for six months and his replacement, Bernie Raeburn, holds a powerful grudge against McCoy: Harry is excluded from this high-profile case and instead assigned a stagnating set of robberies; Harry’s usual right-hand man, Wattie, is forced to attend to Raeburn’s every need.

As the only cop not searching, McCoy attends an apparent accidental drug overdose at the Royal Stuart Hotel. Rock star, Bobby March is found with a syringe in his arm. But the medical examiner suspects foul play. And it seems certain of Bobby’s property is missing.

Meanwhile, Hector Murray asks McCoy, off the record, to locate his missing fifteen-year-old niece, who has been seen associating with undesirables. Talented McCoy, with his contacts, soon tracks down Laura Murray, but has misgivings about returning her immediately to her family. And while on her trail, he comes across a brutally murdered petty criminal, and learns something about a certain old friend (and local gangland boss) that may upset the delicate balance of power in the local crime scene. McCoy is having to spread himself quite thin…

This instalment features a forced confession with tragic consequences, a kidnapping, and child abuse, and McCoy takes a revelatory (but ultimately painful) trip to Belfast. While McCoy may not be the straightest cop on the force, he does have standards and his heart is in the right place, and this leads him to brawl with another senior officer.

As with book #2, this one can stand alone, but the earlier books do give some useful background on the characters and their history. Again, the prolific use of expletives may offend some readers, but there’s a bit of black humour in the banter. Portraying Glasgow at its grittiest, this is excellent Scottish Noir.