Jack Laidlaw (Ian Rankin) Books in Order

This strand is built around The Dark Remains, the Laidlaw prequel completed by Ian Rankin from William McIlvanney’s unfinished manuscript. It sits at the crossroads of two major Scottish crime traditions, letting Rankin step into his mentor’s world while staying true to the original voice.

The novel is set in Glasgow in 1972, early in Jack Laidlaw’s career. He has just joined the city’s Crime Squad and is still learning where he fits in the hierarchy. When Bobby Carter, a sharp suited lawyer and fixer for a powerful gangster, goes missing and then turns up dead, the city’s fragile balance between rival crime bosses is threatened.

Officially, the police want to contain the risk of a turf war. Laidlaw is more interested in what really happened to Carter and what that says about the people involved. His methods already mark him out as different. He listens in pubs, walks instead of driving, and spends as much time thinking about character as about alibis.

Rankin’s role is to flesh out McIlvanney’s notes into a complete story. Readers familiar with Rebus will spot shared concerns: the uneasy relationship between detectives and gangsters, the weight of past mistakes, the sense that a city’s history sits just under its pavements. At the same time the book keeps Laidlaw’s distinctive rhythm and Glasgow flavour.

You do not need to have read the original Laidlaw trilogy to follow The Dark Remains, but it rewards those who have. Longtime fans can enjoy seeing a younger version of the detective take shape, while new readers get an inviting way into McIlvanney’s world. Knowing that the book began as fragments adds an extra layer of interest, but the finished story stands on its own as a lean, atmospheric investigation.

For Rankin readers, this collaboration underlines just how much his own work owes to McIlvanney, and how the Tartan Noir tradition continues to evolve as one generation of writers hands the torch to the next.