The Accidental Footballer – Pat Nevin

Pat Nevin is known as a maverick in the world of football. Though a mercurial winger of great skill, he had no intention of becoming the professional footballer he did. From a working class Glaswegian family passionate about education, he did well at school while playing football for fun and was well into a university course happily playing part-time for Clyde when the big boys, recognising his talent, came knocking.

He would have preferred that it was Celtic, but that never happened and instead he got an offer from Chelsea (then in the English second division) that was too good to refuse. The money was one thing, and the opportunity to experience the London music scene was another draw, and he could always finish his degree later.

He never got back to his studies (an honorary degree was eventually awarded). Though now a professional footballer, he refused to conform to the norm, maintaining his passion for music and the arts in the face of bemusement from most of his teammates. The autobiography, covering his childhood, adolescence, and career at Chelsea, Everton, and Tranmere Rovers, not to mention Scotland, is peppered with visits to gigs and shoulder rubbing with DJs, musicians, and artists.

But the sporting career remains the centrepiece and it is an off-centre look at the world of professional football at a turning point in the game. The Premier League is established, the old drinking and laddish culture is being threatened by more forward-thinking coaches, and the wages are spiralling.

Clearly not ghost-written, Nevin did not even have an agent, this is a genuine first-hand account of those times. What it lacks in polish it makes up for in authenticity; and while there is inevitably a tendency to brag and namedrop, that is offset by the odd dose of self-depreciation.

For those of his generation, an interesting read.

The Castaways – Lucy Clarke

Sisters Lori and Erin have only had each other to rely on for a long time. For a while Lori had a husband, Pete, but now he has gone off with her best friend, Zoe, so it is just the two of them again.

To ease Lori’s pain, Erin books a holiday for the two of them in Fiji. The resort is on a remote part of the archipelago, so there is an overnight stopover on the main island, and it is there that their lives fracture. There is a row; Erin storms off and stays out all night. In the morning, at the airport, Lori waits in vain for her sister to reappear in time for the flight. Her calls to Erin’s phone are unanswered and Lori takes off without her.

It is a small plane - pilot, flight attendant, and half a dozen passengers – and the weather closes in after take-off. No spoiler (look at the title), the plane crashes miles off course on a deserted island and the survivors must, well, survive as best they can as they wait for a rescue that shows no sign of coming.

Two years on, Erin, back in London, still has no news of her sister. Two years of obsessive research, badgering officials, and self-destructive, guilt driven behaviour (drink and men) has left her none the wiser. Until the pilot turns up alive, if unwell, in a Fijian hospital. Erin picks up the new lead and flies to Fiji.

From the start, the story unfolds in two timelines. Erin, in the now, and Lori in the then. Erin’s first person narrative has a breathless immediacy. Lori’s third person narrative, two years in arrears, is more measured but no less dramatic. The technique works very well as the two narratives converge to reveal not only how the castaways fare but also how their concealed backstories drive their seemingly erratic behaviour before, during and after the crash.

The sisterly bond is well dealt with, covering both the attachment and tensions of such a relationship. The traumatic separation and its aftermath have both women questioning and reassessing how they feel, which adds an extra dimension to the thriller aspect of the tale. And thriller it is -  the outcomes for both Lori and Erin are in the balance right to the end.

Garnethill – Denise Mina

Maureen’s affair with Douglas Brady was as good as over before she found his butchered body in her flat. It is an inconvenient time for her lover to die, as Maureen has just received confirmation that the woman that he was cheating on with her, is in fact his wife. The timing not only means Maureen cannot confront him with his duplicity, but it also looks like a motive for murder, at least in the eyes of DCI Joe McEwan.

He has questions, but Maureen, like most residents of Garnethill, distrusts the police and says as little as possible. There are people in her life who would not welcome involvement with the law. Instead, she decides to find out for herself who killed Douglas, and why.

And so, we enter Maureen’s world: her dysfunctional family – alcoholic mother, absent father, social climbing sisters, and supportive, albeit criminal, brother; her friends – Liz at work, gay Benny, and motorcycle-leathers-clad Leslie who volunteers at the women’s refuge; her fellow clients at the Rainbow Centre, damaged and vulnerable, and the psychotherapists who work there (now one fewer following Douglas’s demise).

Hampered by these anarchic characters, excessive alcohol, and harassment from the police and Douglas’s mother, who happens to be an MEP, Maureen makes slow but steady progress in unmasking the killer and their motive.

To focus a crime novel on neither the perpetrator nor the detective is a little unusual. Is Maureen a suspect, witness, or victim? She presents a complex character, possibly unreliable, as she carries the burden of the narrative. Resolving her wider issues are as important as solving the crime, though the two inevitably intertwine.

The Glasgow setting is atmospheric and seems authentic. The characters are colourful, and the pace is good, bordering on frenetic. By the end relationships are reappraised, and reckonings doled out, making for a satisfying read.