Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead.

Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will?

Thrilling and atmospheric, The Second Cut delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in The Cutting Room, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.

Review:

Dark, sinister, and seedy!

The Second Cut is a gritty, chilling thriller that takes you back to Glasgow, Scotland, and into the life of middle-aged, gay auctioneer Mr Rilke who, after receiving a business tip for a lucrative house auction from Jojo, a long-time friend who merely hours later turns up dead on the street, finds himself inadvertently mixed up in the disturbing criminal underworld and all the immortality, depravity, manipulation, and violence that is found there.

The prose is raw and tight. The characters are lonely, anxious, and vulnerable. And the plot is an ominous tale full of twists, turns, secrets, deception, corruption, desperation, sexual liaisons, violence, mayhem, and murder.

Overall, The Second Cut is an atmospheric, unsettling, taut novel by Welsh that was shocking, sordid, entertaining, and truly an edgy Tartan Noir.

This book is available on now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.