Callum McSorley (2024) Paperboy.

Callum McSorley’s Squeaky Clean won the McIlvanney Prize and had the kind of reception any debut novelist would sell his granny for and would fling in his grandad as a freebie. Job done.  You’re number 1.

But here’s the rub, you need to write something else, pronto. People walk into doors. Open the fridge and put their shoes inside instead of the milk (I’m making that bit up. Never done that—yet).

Why not write the same book and call it something else?

Paperboy is a follow up to Squeaky Clean.

Ally McCoist (no, no the ex-Rangers number 9 and currently self-indulgent commentator on all things fitba that pays a wedge of cash to him for talking shite).

Detective Ally McCoist. The one that shot Paulo, but got help from on high, and framed Paulo’s dodgy and exceedingly dim nephew, Colin, for the murder.

This is partly her story. She’s still got the dog she loves a wee bit less than her twins. It’s all work but no play, but that’s her life. When a body is found (there’s been a murder as they used to say in Taggart) she’s off on a womanhunt.

She was on the cusp of being sacked in the first book. She is on the cusp of being jailed, or worse in Paperboy.

Davey, from Squeaky Clean, is on the run with his boss and that’s the way it’s got to remain for McCoist to remain safe. That could be leverage for someone to blackmail her or worse, fuck her up.

Davey lived on the ready cash from the car wash and his cans or beer and his love for his ex-wife and hope that she’s let him see their bairn.

He got on the wrong side of Paulo and crashed into the gangsters that run Glasgow’s underworld and rob more punters than Trump peddling bibles and bitcoins, but without any sign of redemption. He’s dragged into the underworld.

Chuck shreds documents (Simply Shred) for a living. He’s the Paperboy here. He’s got a wife that’s a nurse and they’re hanging onto a house in the suburbs. Chuck is Davey here.

Chuck has made a deal with the devil. Two devils, Callahan and Jamieson. They’re all for mopping up the spoils that Paulo left behind. Jamieson has made Chuck the kind of offer where he can’t really say no to. He’s consolidated all his gambling debts. But Chuck is an addict. He’s creating new debts to gamble with quicker than Red Rum (that’s an old horse tale, and a tired joke).

It’s tied in with the body McCoist finds.

Paulo’s shit list. That’s worth fighting for. Men had died for less. It includes not only who owes him cash for drugs and who’s in his debt, but also who he’s blackmailing and the goods he’s got on them.  

Paulo’s widow, Lottie, knew the deal she’s made when she married Glasgow’s top gangster. She needs to make a new deal. A new life. She claims no knowledge of The Shit List.

Nobody much believes her, with good reason. She probably believes the second novel is the first book in disguise. We all dae it. Few of us get away wae it. But some get a whole series of books out of it that sell like shit from a shovel. Paperboy. You might get away wae it, Squeaky Clean. Read on.

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