I’ve a very striking book cover on show today. THE CORSAIRS by Brian Cook

At first glance this book cover had my attention. I love it! Red always stands out for me, but it’s more than the colour I’m attracted to. It’s the style of that building. It’s a busy building with a lot going on in there.

On closer inspection I see crime and the law — yes, both usually go hand in hand. Not sure where the ship and cross come in? Smuggling maybe. Syringe points to drugs. There’s definitely murder being committed. Very intriguing.

As for the title; I’m thinking that the Corsairs are a gang, or maybe somebody’s name. I’m not sure. This is the part where I open up Amazon and search for the book. Hopefully the cover is an accurate description of the genre.

The Blurb

When Alec MacKay escapes his Ayrshire mining town he discovers there are some things from which you just can’t run.

It’s 1987 and breaking ranks with the hostile attitudes of his mining community and estranged father, Alec MacKay joins the police. He is posted to Glasgow where he encounters a world of violence, deprivation and sectarianism. Alienated from his old life and struggling for acceptance in the new, Alec fights to win over the tight knit group he’s assigned to, until a shocking discovery forces him to break ranks once again…

The Corsairs is a coming of age story. It tells the story of a young man forced to deal with the estrangement between himself and his father and the culture shock of becoming a police officer in a violent deprived community in 1980’s Glasgow. Set against a backdrop of sectarianism, the heroin epidemic and a Scotland undergoing profound change in the era of Thatcher economics, this is a tale of resilience and the roles that family and friendship play in a turbulent world.

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Ah… I should have guessed. It’s a police station on the cover. Very creative, I must say.

I had to look up the meaning of ‘corsair’. It’s means pirate. That explains the ship on the cover.

It’s okay that I didn’t know what corsair meant and if others don’t know either. We have the internet at our fingertips and it’s not difficult to look it up. When the book ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ came out, I had no idea what a crawdad was. I knew within 30 seconds of opening Google on my phone.

The Corsairs seems like quite an interesting story. 89% of its Amazon reviews are 5 star. Impressive!

Here’s a couple of reader reviews that might help you decide whether this would be one for your TBR list!

Tony Burke ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  Pacy and insightful

Enjoyed this immensely.

It’s the late-Thatcher era, and we follow Alec McKay, a trainee/probationary beat cop, through his eventful first year on the force as he completes his training and is subsequently posted to a deprived part of post-industrial Glasgow during the late-Thatcher era.

Episodic and vividly told, this could stand up well as a series of short stories exposing the true nature of the police and policing in that place at that time. Fair warning : McKay soon encounters plenty of blood and gore and there are no absolutely concessions here to the faint hearted – this isn’t a comfortable read if Murder She Wrote is your thing.

But there is more, a lot more, to this novel.

The devastating impact of Thatcherism on working communities is well documented elsewhere. But less well explored is the psychological impact on individuals, on their self esteem, and on their personal relationships (can only really think of David Peace as being interested in this). McKay, brought up in a pit village, is essentially a non-vocational and atypical policeman. He is one of so many young people of that time who were forced into difficult and unexpected life choices. It’s hard to imagine a more difficult choice than to leave a mining community to join a politicised and , at the time, widely despised organisation which Thatcher had used so brazenly to defeat the miners. This is all handled sensitively , largely through McKays cagey interactions with his peer group , and in particular with his father (btw – William McIllvanney would surely recognise and understand McKay senior) on his occasionanal return to his home village. Brilliant stuff.

Over his first year , McKay, well meaning and eager to please., initially encounters routine ostracism and, later, bullying, corruption, and barely concealed sectarianism (this is the jurassic 1980s West of Scotland after all), and his struggles with colleagues and superiors soon become front and central to the plot. The pace is relentless but the protagonist is reflective and thoughtful, and we are mercifully spared any stereotypical alcohol abuse and/or relationship problems and/or maverick cop tropes. There is a satisfying but slightly open-ended conclusion suggesting that an older, wiser Alec McKay will be back on the beat sometime soon.

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Amazon Customer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  Literary Magnet!

An exceptional read from this self published author. A storyline that is magnetic keeping you stuck to it even when you know (or your wife tells you) you have things to do. It is so well written you actually start to feel that you know the characters which keeps you engrossed in what happens next! I truly hope to see this book dramatised and look forward to the author’s future works!

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I’m sold! This is in my Kindle.

Happy reading. See you next time!

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