The second cut

Fans of Jonathan Gash's antiques-dealer hero Lovejoy should appreciate this mystery, featuring the Glasgow antiques auctioneer Rilke, back, after 20 years, from his debut in The Cutting Room. As with Lovejoy, Rilke's job brings him in contact with fakes, forgeries, and overlooked treasures, encountering all levels of society along the way. Both men are promiscuous, with Lovejoy heterosexual and Rilke gay (he often reflects on how the treatment of gay men in Glasgow has changed for the better over the last 20 years). The mystery kicks off with the death of Rilke's longtime friend Jojo Nugent, who eked out a living running collectibles between auction houses. Jojo is found dead in a doorway at the end of a long slide into drink, drugs, and sometimes-dangerous hookups. The cops dismiss the death as accidental, but Rilke feels he owes it to Jojo to investigate. A tip Jojo gave Rilke before his death leads Rilke to a Miss Havisham--like falling-apart house, loaded with old booty from the British Empire, along with possible clues to Jojo's death.

This excellent sequel to 2002's The Cutting Room, which won the British Crime Writers Association award for best first novel, is set in post-Covid Glasgow after the now middle-aged Rilke has become head auctioneer at Bowery Auctions. He's grappling with the effects of getting older and changes to Glasgow's LGBTQ community when Jojo, an old acquaintance now down on his luck, offers him a potentially lucrative lead on a client with a country house full of antiques. The following day, Jojo is found dead. Rilke takes it on himself to investigate, and Welsh braids his investigation with a dizzying number of other plot threads--the gruesome death of a dog, a fatal car crash, the disappearance of an elderly pianist, a cache of drugs, an artist chronicling the dark side of Glasgow's gay scene, a ruthless gangster rising through the criminal ranks--and leaves readers to gradually draw connections between them. This offers the same nuanced characterizations and evocative, visceral prose that launched Welsh's debut to cult classic status. The result is an unputdownable mystery that will make readers feel safe in the hands of a master. Agent: Sam Copeland, RCW Literary. (May)