The Second Cut by Louise Welsh Review

Auctioneer Rilke gets a tip from his old friend Jojo of a wealthy old lady wanting to clear her ancestral home, Ballantyne House, and sell up. But then Jojo mysteriously dies and when Rilke goes to visit the old lady he finds her missing and two men, one of them claiming to be her son, in the home instead. And then an acquaintance of Jojo’s dies in similar circumstances and known gangsters are seen in Ballantyne House’s grounds. As much as Rilke’s auction house needs this sale to go ahead after all the covid lockdowns caused economic hardship, he can’t help but look into what’s really going on behind the scenes…

Twenty years after her debut novel, The Cutting Room, was published, Scottish author Louise Welsh returns to Rilke’s shady Glaswegian world of auctions and death in the sequel, The Second Cut. I never read the first book but you don’t need to have either - this works fine as a standalone piece - and it’s not a bad read either.

Of the two storylines that comprise this novel, I was much more interested in the mystery of the missing old lady and events surrounding the Ballantyne House auction, rather than the death of Rilke’s mate Jojo. That’s mostly because the latter doesn’t seem to warrant so much attention given how Welsh sets up the character: Jojo is an older man who’s into a very rough lifestyle, taking all sorts of hard drugs and partying constantly. Yeah, he died - that’s what happens when you live that recklessly!

I feel like it was forced so that Welsh could write extensively about the Glasgow gay scene and society’s perception of sexuality in the 2020s as a contrast to how things were back in the early 2000s, particularly as she’s a gay author herself. Which is fine - and it is informative - but also mostly irrelevant to the overall story, especially given its underwhelming and pointless resolution.

But Welsh writes the Ballantyne House storyline well, constantly throwing in enticingly dark elements to build up the tension. It’s only really undercut by the alternate switching to the less compelling storyline, which makes the book a slower read. Although, similar to the Jojo storyline, the ending to this isn’t great but not wholly unsatisfying either.

The cast are a colourful bunch of fully-realised characters - Rilke’s bossy boss Rose, her police beau Anderson, the young upstart gangster Jamie Mitchell and the established gangland boss Ray Diamond, the questionable cousins Alec and John Forrest, the young artist Sands, and Rilke’s other dirtbag mate, Les. Like the whole book, they’re well-written with distinctive voices and strong personalities.

Rilke too is a captivating protagonist. The description of his lanky cadaver-like appearance is instantly striking in your mind’s eye, and he’s an intriguing mix of polished middle-class professionalism with an extensive, canny knowledge of, and sometimes participant of, the Glasgow underworld of drugs and sex. It makes a refreshing change as well to have a non-police character in the main role of a crime novel. It means Welsh has to be more creative in the narrative and she pulls this off admirably well.

The Second Cut is a decent crime novel. It’s not the most fast-paced or gripping read but the writing is accessible, the storytelling is often engaging, and it’s peopled with fun and unusual characters. Though uneven, it’s a solid book that will probably appeal to patient readers of crime fiction.