Editorial Content for Every Night I Dream of Hell

The idea of a subgenre known as “Tartan Noir” --- dark Scottish crime fiction --- might seem a bit of a stretch. I mean, the reflexive impression of Scotland for a lot of people, including myself, consists of fog, hills, bagpipes and, um, unusual food, with two large industrial cities plunked down in the middle of it all. Crime? What crime? Lots of it, apparently. According to the United Nations, Scotland is the world’s most violent developed country. Whether it deserves that ranking or not, there are certainly enough violent assaults happening there to cause folks to take notice and create a subgenre around them. As a result, one can pick up a Scottish crime novel without being armed with the same suspension of disbelief that might be needed when reading other fine series in which murders occur in ski resort towns (among other places) with remarkable regularity.

All of this brings us to EVERY NIGHT I DREAM OF HELL, a new work by Malcolm Mackay, author of the rightfully acclaimed trio of books known as The Glasgow Trilogy. This is technically a work that stands alone from that series but nonetheless references events that took place therein. I frankly cannot imagine a situation where anyone picking up the novel would not want to immediately dive into Mackay’s past work, which is its own fully realized dark criminal universe.

"One does not want to become too deeply attached to any of these characters, given that it is clear from the beginning of the story that any one or all of them may not make it to the final pages. It is a dark read, complex but satisfying, and all the more real for it."

EVERY NIGHT I DREAM OF HELL is narrated primarily, though not exclusively, through the voice of Nate Colgan, a so-called security enforcer for Peter Jamieson’s criminal organization. Jamieson’s arrest by Glasgow DI Michael Fisher and subsequent imprisonment has set off a chain reaction occasioned by the truism that nature abhors a vacuum. There is immediate jockeying for position, primarily between two parties. Angus Lafferty, a major drug importer under Jamieson’s reign, wants to take over, but his considerable reach in this regard may exceed his grasp. Meanwhile, it is rumored that Adrian Barrett, a drug dealer whose small empire in Birmingham crashed and burned, may be in Glasgow with his crew, attempting to take over Jamieson’s turf.

Fuel is added to this rumor when Lee Christie, one of Lafferty’s dealers, is summarily executed. The incident is taken by Lafferty as a warning, and he immediately tasks Jamieson’s people with finding Barrett and his crew and exacting revenge. Zara Cope, a very dangerous woman with ties to both Colgan and Fisher, suddenly returns to Glasgow as this is occurring. Colgan is quick to make the connection. Things come to a boil quickly and soon overflow.

One does not want to become too deeply attached to any of these characters, given that it is clear from the beginning of the story that any one or all of them may not make it to the final pages. It is a dark read, complex but satisfying, and all the more real for it.

A final word: Bless Malcolm Mackay! And bless Mulholland Books for including a glossary of characters at the beginning of this affair. EVERY NIGHT I DREAM OF HELL is of average length for a novel (a fact that belies the superior quality within), but it has an abundance of characters, all of them bumping into each other and interacting in all sorts of ways, violent and (occasionally) otherwise. Thus the glossary is more than welcome, especially for those of us of a certain age who can easily get the names of our adult children confused, let alone strangers in a novel. Authors and publishers of other books, please take note. It is but one reason that I highly recommend Mackay’s latest effort.