Alan Parks delivers a knockout with Gunner—a moody, masterfully plotted thriller that plunges readers into the rain-soaked streets of wartime Glasgow and introduces a compelling new hero in Joseph Gunner. Fans of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels will feel right at home here: Gunner is cut from similar cloth—cynical, wounded, morally complex, and utterly magnetic.
Set in March 1941, Gunner returns from the front lines of France with a bad leg, a morphine habit, and no desire to get involved in anything beyond surviving the Luftwaffe’s nightly raids. But when the mutilated body of a German turns up in the rubble—and whispers of Nazi sympathisers, British aristocrats, and MI5 begin to swirl—he’s dragged into an investigation that stretches far beyond the Glasgow streets he thought he knew.
Parks captures the noir essence brilliantly: the shadows are long, the moral lines are blurred, and danger lurks behind every conversation. Like Bernie Gunther, Gunner is a man who knows how dirty the world can be—and still searches for justice, even when it might cost him everything. The writing crackles with sharp dialogue and vivid atmosphere, the plot is twisty and intelligent, and the historical detail—particularly the Hess subplot—is woven in with subtlety and suspense.
The climax is outstanding: tense, surprising, and pitch-perfect. This is historical crime fiction at its finest—smart, addictive, and deeply satisfying.
Gunner is a character I can’t wait to meet again. If this is the start of a series, sign me up now. Parks has taken a bold step into new territory, and it pays off in spades.