The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter cover art

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free + £10 Audible voucher

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter

By: Malcolm Mackay
Narrated by: Angus King
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £9.33

Buy Now for £9.33

Winner of the ITV3 Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read Award; shortlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Dagger for Best Debut Crime Novel of the Year and the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year Award, longlisted the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of the Year.

A twenty-nine-year-old man lives alone in his Glasgow flat. The telephone rings; a casual conversation, but behind this a job offer. The clues are there if you know to look for them.

He is an expert. A loner. Freelance. Another job is another job, but what if this organisation wants more?

A meeting at a club. An offer. A brief. A target:

Lewis Winter.

It's hard to kill a man well. People who do it well know this. People who do it badly find out the hard way. The hard way has consequences.

An arresting, gripping novel of dark relationships and even darker moralities, The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter introduces a remarkable new voice in crime fiction.

The second book in the Glasgow Trilogy How A Gunman Says Goodbye will follow soon . . .

 Crime Crime Fiction Crime Thrillers Fiction Genre Fiction Modern Detectives Mystery Thriller & Suspense Urban Thriller Suspense
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Critic reviews

‘Cool, laconic and very enjoyable. I look forward eagerly to the second novel in the trilogy’ Allan Massie

‘A very auspicious debut, this is an amazing novel, incredibly gripping from the first page to the last. A vivid portrait of the Glasgow underworld, it’s completely hypnotic . . . like the great writers, people like Elmore Leonard, Mackay paints really vivid portraits of his characters . . . a really unique voice’ Mark Billingham

‘A really clever multi-viewpoint novel about the Glasgow underworld . . . The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter was a real revelation, a real find for me’ Kate Mosse

‘A dark, rich, brutal thriller . . . it absolutely captivates you. The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is more than a page turner, it’s a page ripper. For a debut novel this sparkles, this zings, it leaps off the page. If you like Ian Rankin, if you like Stuart MacBride, if you like Val McDermid, Denise Mina – Malcolm Mackay is right up there’ Peter James

‘Glasgow’s a tough city and this is a tough book . . . very authentic, very gritty, you can really feel the streets. They call this genre Tartan Noir and absolutely The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is a first class member of that’ Lee Child

‘I finished it almost in a sitting. The prose is spare and taut and pulls the reader into the minds of the disparate characters . . . beautifully and truthfully written with the deceptive simplicity of a fine short story’ Ann Cleeves, creator of VERA
‘A remarkably original debut . . . this is a book that it would be hard not to finish in one sitting . . . a wholly believable and unnerving portrait of organised crime’ Observer
‘The debut writer who is being hailed as tartan noir’s most authoritative and authentic new voice . . . Mackay writes in a tough-guy style that is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett at their most hard-boiled’ Scotsman
‘Brutal, witty and well-written . . . a brilliant debut’ Sunday Telegraph
‘On the evidence of his impressive debut Malcolm Mackay will no doubt be hailed as the newest member of the Tartan Noir community. Yet the feel and style of The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter is more American than Scottish . . . a quietly absorbing gangland tale, full of moral ambiguities’ Marcel Berlins, The Times
All stars
Most relevant
I took a punt on this - never bought anything by this author previously.

I have been mightily impressed by the wuality of the writing - not a reheated JD Kirk rip-off, as some are.

I had bought the next in the series before I was more than halfway through this.

Quality yarn, excellent narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
46 chapters. By chapter 12, nothing was truly hooking me and lacked quality. Insomnia cure though.

The unnecessary length of the story. 46 chapters.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What made the experience of listening to The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter the most enjoyable?

Tightly written, brilliantly narrated and, as the first in a trilogy, I had two more to enjoy.

What did you like best about this story?

Although the subject matter could have led to a gruesome tale of sex and violence, it was superbly handled.

What about Angus King’s performance did you like?

An amazing performance by Angus King. He captured the essence of the story and made the written book redundant.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I just couldn't put it down.

Any additional comments?

Most highly recommended

Awesome!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I usually listen to lot longer books, as I have sometimes been disappointed in shorter books having less time to develop characters and plot lines. However this book, althought short , lets you into the mind of many of the characters, as you see a crime from the point of view of them,one at a time, as the plot develops. It is interesting to see the differing thoughts as the plot progresses. So although it's a fairly straightforward crime story, it does give a different slant to it and I found it strolled along to a satisfactory conclusion. I appreciated that although it is written from differing characters points of view , the narrrator stayed the same. I have found it irritating in some audiobooks books when different narrators are used for different characters.

STROLLS ALONG

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's interesting to read a crime book that isn't a thriller. It's a solid setup and an interesting view into the Glaswegian underworld, and more importantly the variety of point of view characters gives a really interesting insight into the workings of a number of minds and personalities, which was my favourite part.

The actual events of the story are what let it down. I won't spoil anything but I don't need to - the author basically telegraphs everything that'll happen in advance. Everything is analysed in minute detail in inner monologues, and there's no real twist or mystery.

Towards the end there's some minor uncertainty over who was the victim of an attack, but it's resolved quickly and I was never in any real doubt. Then the book ends more or less without ceremony, with the police investigation incomplete and the great game being played by the big gang players barely begun. Can't help feeling the story barely got started, but somehow took a long time doing so.

Good setup, dull conclusion

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews