They say never judge a book by its cover, but in the case of Allan Guthrie’s latest Edinburgh-based hardboiled crime thriller its damn difficult not to.

Hard Case Crime is a relatively recent publisher specialising in paperback editions of pulp classics and the best of the new hardboiled. Their covers are already among the best out there, harking back to the glory days of the pulp novel with beautiful covers homaging the glory days of pulp and hardboiled fiction. When Kiss Her Goodbye popped through the Crime Scene mailbox, I knew I was in love with the book just by admiring the striking image on the cover. But the gimmick doesn’t stop there. In terms of print, cover blurb and design, Hard Case have created a line of books that recall the thrill of the old pulps. It is a wonderful gimmick and one that is guaranteed to attract the attention of readers.

But for all my salivating over the cover and design of the book, one must remember that it’s what on the inside that counts. And luckily for us, Kiss Her Goodbye delivers beautifully on the pulpy promise of its cover.

Joe Hope works as an enforcer for Edinburgh loan-shark Cooper (whom readers may recognise as a peripheral character from Two Way Split). His life is violent but simple until his daughter, Gemma kills herself. On a desperate mission to find out how this happened, Joe finds his life spinning out of control as he is suddenly called up for the murder of his wife. With the help of an inexperienced barrister, a prostitute and a baseball bat, Joe determines not only to prove his innocence but to get bloody revenge on whoever stitched him up.

Kiss Her Goodbye is Allan Guthrie’s second novel following the tour-de-force debut of Two Way Split. But while Two Way Split was, on the whole, a wonderfully assured debut and delivered with infectious enthusiasm, something felt off about its climax; a step too far into a fantastical psycho-babble. Kiss Her Goodbye remains more grounded and delivers on the promise of TWS, managing to ambush the reader with a more satisfying ending. If you want to make an analogy, you could say (and you’d be right to do so) that Allan Guthrie reads like the bastard Scottish son of Charles Willeford.

Gurthie’s dialogue pushes past the usual stilted accents of Brit crime, and his understanding of criminal psychopathy creates a Willefordian weirdness that is at once gruesome and yet utterly believable. Cooper, the loan shark, is casually violent, uncompromisingly self-centred and utterly recognisable. Joe Hope is an everyman in many ways, but with a violently egotistical twist. Tina the prostitute could be the hooker with the heart of gold, but she transcends her cliché status with an unshakeable hard-ass attitude and a realistically downbeat outlook on life. And of course, Adam, the innocent caught up in affairs is just as twisted as any of the criminals in his own unique fashion. None of these characters are likeable and yet, like the best hardboiled pulp, they are intriguing; proving that, despite the Hollywood maxim that we must sympathise with our characters, sometimes the most interesting characters are those with whom we have no real sympathy. We understand these people, sure, but how many of us would actually like to meet these guys for a pint?

Guthrie’s talent lies in his characterisation and his toughness. He understands that guns and serial killers do not tough guys make. Give a Scotsman (or woman) a baseball bat and the violence can be infinitely more shocking than any David Fincher movie or Quentin Tarrantino bloodbath. But what makes Guthrie’s work unique in a culture obsessed by criminal conspiracy and killers with grand-guignol motives is that everything in the book is personal. The criminals are motivated by pride, revenge, lust and other petty squabbles that we all have to deal with. The difference is that these guys find their solutions in somewhat unorthodox and often violent fashions (Well, maybe it’s not a difference, but we’d all like to think it is!). After years of reading Brit authors who think that they’re tough when in fact they’re little more than Allan Ladd compared to the Humphrey Bogarts of writers like Leonard, Ellroy and and McDonald, its nice to find a Brit author who is edging towards a more real violence; a violence that hurts and that is at the same time less sensational than the glossy but soulless depictions most people give us. Not only that, but it’s a blessed pleasure to read a book about tough guys that isn’t set in London. With no wide-o London cock-a-nees to ruin the atmosphere with their cheeky native charm, Kiss Her Goodbye is a real lesson in how to be tough and shows that the English are little boys compared to their neighbours in the north.

If there are any problems its maybe that Guthrie seems to give his characters superficial psycho-sexual problems to battle that sometimes feel a little tacked on. Two books in and two main characters suffering obvious sexual problems feels like a little too much of a pattern, but in the grand scheme of things even these kind of complaints seem like nit-picking such is the gung-ho, hell-for-leather pace of Guthrie’s writing and characterisation.

Kiss Her Goodbye is tough-as-nails, Scots noir. Deftly characterised, with witty dialogue and a mean plot, Guthrie’s excellent second novel is lean, keen and pure hardboiled heaven. It’s rare that a British writer comes along who just pulls you into his world so easily. But Guthrie leads you willingly with a tough, no-nonsense style and the kind of easy-going storytelling ability missing from so many new writers trying their damndest to break the marketplace today. Seek it out, buy it: at least for that cover, but don’t forget that there’s a hell of a tale lurking within the pulp-heaven binding.

Russel D McLean