Lennox by Craig Russell

Lennox is, we are promised, the first book in a series about a ‘fixer’ in 1950s Glasgow, by author Craig Russell who once served as a police officer in Scotland. It’s odd then that his protagonist is not in the police – Lennox is some sort of shady middleman, and the plot of the book involves him having to solve a murder he’s a suspect in. Naturally, the police and various criminal elements get in his way, and he plays them off entertainingly against each other. The problem with the book is that the setting is incredibly overdone. Lennox seems to have a geography fetish, and a road map will help readers in passages like: “I swung across the Albert Bridge. Crown Street was empty of cars. From here he could have taken the Carlisle road or…” and it goes on. References to the fifties are similarly laboured: “I found myself thinking that if newly appointed General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld...” is not the language of a Glasgow hard man. Or anyone else. A pretty good crime thriller, if you can ignore the odd laughable detail. [Ryan Agee]