Parallel Lines

PARALLEL LINES: THE GLASGOW SUPREMACY, the first in the Thoroughgood series of crime novels by RJ Mitchell, is an edgy, fast-paced crime thriller set in the streets of Glasgow, that tells the story of the deadly rivalry between Detective Sergeant Gus Thoroughgood and his criminal nemesis, Declan Meechan. With Meechan on the verge of complete control of Glasgow’s lucrative drug trade after bludgeoning his rivals into bloody submission, Thoroughgood vows to be the cop that will bring the crime lord down. The lethal intensity of their conflict is heightened by the presence of Celine Lynott, the woman who broke Thoroughgood’s heart ten years earlier, and looks set to do so all over again when she agrees to be Meechan’s wife. Parallel Lines is a powerful and compelling story with a real sting in the tail that draws heavily on the author’s 12 years of experience as a Glasgow cop. With the pace of the book unrelenting and the action sequences, including one unforgettable whitewater adrenalin pursuit through Glasgow’s Clyde Tunnel, the breathtaking, Parallel Lines is a debut novel that is visual feast for the mind’s eye.

Reviews of Parallel Lines

""They call Scottish crime fiction 'tartan noir' – and if that's the case, then the thread of red that runs through Parallel Lines is a river of blood, and the blacks and greens are the bruises on a battered corpse. This book doesn't pull any punches in its depiction of a deadly cops-and-robbers feud that strays far beyond the procedural into the personal. At the core of the story is a traditional love triangle – the hero, the villain and the girl that gets between them – but it's Mitchell's first-hand knowledge of what goes on behind the police station's closed doors that sets the book apart. This is a real page-turner: once that plot is set in motion, like a car with its brake pipes cut hurtling down a steep Glasgow street – and that's an image from the book you won't forget – it carries the reader right through to its bullet-strewn climax."" ALAN MORRISON, Group Arts Editor, Herald & Times