Soho
Published March 3, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Janey is in a bad way after finding the mutilated body of a woman near some abandoned train tracks. Her grandmother is at her wits end, trying to figure out how to help the traumatized twelve year old and can’t help but think the girl is holding something back. Something troubling that has led her to go to confession three times. Janey can’t even stand the company of her dog, Sid Vicious, who led her to the body. The truth is, while Janey can’t stop thinking about what she saw, she can’t recall what happened afterword, when she may have seen the killer.
The bereaved father of Samantha, the dead woman, is involved in organized crime in Possipark, an impoverished neighborhood in North Glasgow. The relationship between the residents and the police is not good; in reality, its the criminals who are the law in Possil. Janey’s Nana has a miserable job cleaning in a local pub, and is tempted when Samantha’s father offers her a job at a dodgy taxi service. She’s not happy about working for criminals, but she feels for the grieving man and is half-convinced by his claim that he simply wants to do something for the family of the girl who found his murdered daughter.
Meanwhile, Janey has suspects in mind for the murder. She compiles a notebook about Samantha, trying to deal with the shock of finding her body, and gets to know her friends, a librarian who she dated and a group of girls she met at university. But none of it helps. Her anxiety rises as a man begins to follow her, making veiled threats about keeping her mouth shut.
Told in the voices of Janey and her grandmother, both richly steeped in Glasgwegian dialect, this novel is a brilliant evocation of a close-knit neighborhood in the 1980s and the ways a murder sends out ripples through the community. While the focus is largely on the lives of its vivid characters, the mystery is well-plotted and offers a number of twists and turns. Altogether, it’s an impressive debut by an author who knows how to bring this particular time and place to life through two endearing, complex women.
Besides, as Samantha’s university pals tell Janey, Sid Vicious is the best dog name ever.