Dog And Bone, 1990. 244p

Jack Naylor is a solicitor for a Glasgow legal firm (working from their branch in Dumbarton!) He has frequently acted for the activists of a local peace camp located in Glen Douglas. When two of their number are arrested for the murder of a noted and well-liked peace campaigner in Glasgow he is asked to take on the case. It is his first time acting for someone accused of murder; hence the title Blooding Mister Naylor. About halfway through the book as the plot began to complicate and fold back on itself I began to form the suspicion that the title would perhaps become all too literal.

One of the two accused, a woman, is released early on. The usual sorts of complications ensue. Naylor’s bosses do not want him to take the case, there are hints of MI5 and SBS involvement, multi-national corporations lurk in the background, Naylor’s movements are followed, his phone calls tapped and his professional integrity questioned in the press.

This is a work in the comical/thriller style later mined so enthusiastically by Christopher Brookmyre and as such is very readable, but is a shade or two darker.

Unfortunately the book is littered with typos and/or misspellings. Dog And Bone was, I fear, a publishing venture based on less than a shoestring though with a striking set of covers unmistakably designed by Alasdair Gray.

If you like Brookmyre, though, give this one a go.

Sadly there will be no more like this from Chris Boyce as he died in 1999. So it goes.