ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

Paperboy

Callum McSorley author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pushkin Press

Publishing:12th Mar '26

£10.99

This title is due to be published on 12th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Paperboy cover

The dark, rawly comic follow-up to the winner of the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime book of the year.

'A serious talent' Kevin Bridges

'Inventive and witty, with a nerve-shredding finale' Chris Brookmyre

'An outstanding new writer who is destined to become a very big name' Peter James

DCI Alison McCoist is back: newly promoted and even less popular.

Chuck Gardner is the proud owner of both a confidential paper-shredding business and a serious betting habit.

When Chuck finds some scandalous paperwork and McCoist investigates a rat-nibbled corpse under a flyover, they are both sucked into a deadly stramash of gangland wars and police corruption.

Can Chuck solve his gambling and gangster problems before some head-banger feeds him into his own shredder? And can McCoist claw herself out of this latest shitemire without her own shady dealings coming to light? It might depend on how far she's prepared to go...

"A novel dripping with wicked black humour and a real sense of place"
—McIlvanney Prize Judges

"Violent, profane, hilarious"
—Telegraph, The best new crime and thriller books to read this year

"Looking for something a little bit … filthy? Try Paperboy... This energetic novel from a rising star of crime is full of black comedy, gore, slapstick and street slang"
—The Times, Summer Reads

ISBN: 9781805335474

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

384 pages