The Sudden Arrival of Violence

By: Malcolm Mackay

Narrated by: Angus King

Travel into the dark underworld of Glasgow, Scotland, in the suspenseful, award-winning organized-crime thriller series that the New York Times calls "habit-forming."

Hit man Calum MacLean has finally had enough of killing. And he's planning an unprecedented escape just as his employers need him the most -- Glasgow's biggest criminal organizations are gearing up for a final, fatal confrontation.

The panic over Calum's abrupt disappearance may finally give Detective Michael Fisher the chance he needs to close the case of a lifetime. But first, he must track down a man who has become a master at staying in the shadows.

Don't pick up a Mackay book unless you've got spare time. They're habit-forming." -- Janet Maslin, The New York Times "It's been a long time since so many pages went by so fast . . . Mackay is a natural storyteller [with] a voice to which we're happy to surrender. Surprisingly rewarding . . . a thriller trilogy that thrills. " -- Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post "Bracing . . . remarkable." -- Adam Woog, Seattle Times

Critic reviews

"[Mackay's] Glasgow Trilogy is classic . . . The subject is organized crime, but it's the author's blunt eloquence that matters. Don't pick up a Mackay book unless you've got spare time. They're habit-forming."—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"It's been a long time since so many pages went by so fast .... Mackay is a natural storyteller [with] a voice to which we're happy to surrender. Surprisingly rewarding .... a thriller trilogy that thrills. "—Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post

"Bracing ... remarkable."—Adam Woog, Seattle Times

"Mackay gathers all the pieces of his massively inventive puzzle together. . . . [A] bloody operatic finale."—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Superb . . . Mackay is a true original, managing to conjure up a gripping new way of portraying city-noir. This, from a writer who has lived his whole life in far-off Stornoway, with only few short visits to the Glasgow he has so vividly created. He's no longer a rising star. He's risen."—The Times

"Reviewers often groan at the hyperbole with which publishers adorn new novels, but with Malcolm Mackay it is justified. His poetic titles (The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter and How a Gunman Says Goodbye) are infused with the sense of menace that is the sine qua non of the genre while tipping the wink that this is crime writing with ambition. The Sudden Arrival of Violence is the conclusion to Mackay's acclaimed Glasgow trilogy . . . The youthful Mackay has the command of a writer twice his age, and he has delivered a conclusion to his trilogy that is just as cohesive and forceful as his previous two books."—Financial Times