The Long Drop

Author/Guide: Denise Mina

Why a Booktrail?

1957: The story of a serial killer and his victims

ISBN: 978-1911215233
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

William Watt wants answers about his family’s murder. Peter Manuel has them. But Peter Manuel is a liar.

William Watt is an ordinary businessman, a fool, a social climber.

Peter Manuel is a famous liar, a rapist, a criminal. He claims he can get hold of the gun used to murder Watt’s family.

One December night in 1957, Watt meets Manuel in a Glasgow bar to find out what he knows.

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Glasgow

The long drop refers to the method used for hanging in Scotland. This shows what happened to the man who terrorised Glasgow but it’s the story up until that point that this book tells.

Denise Mina recounts one of the nights Peter and the father of one of his victims meet to talk. It’s a meeting arrange by his lawyer in a local Glasgow restaurant. The two men are left alone and they spend the entire evening talking and even visiting a few clubs. The father needs answers.

The book also shows the Glasgow in fear, the Glasgow Peter saw and where he roamed. The prison walls his mum sees, the son she brought up vilified by everyone in Scotland let alone the city of Glasgow. And the resulting horror faced by the victims and their families.

Glasgow itself comes out raw and rough, it was a dirty city, slums were rife and poverty too. Violence and fear roamed its streets. Men had to be hard, fight for what they believed in, and if that meeant beating and controlling their women fair enough.

Of course given the nature of this book and the fact the crimes are relatively recent the book is not intended as a booktrail but as a way of seeing the crimes and the horrors which were inflicted on the people of Glasgow over the spate of two years. It was recently the subject of an ITV drama In Plain Sight starring Dougie Henshall.

Booktrailer Review

This is a fictionalized account of Scotland’s notorious serial killer Peter Manuel from the 1950s. It’s not a Glasgow you would want to go on a booktrail of either as this Glasgow is grey and grim and gritty and all the other words you can think of beginning with G. The title, The Long Drop – is the name for the method of hanging used for the man himself – Peter Manuel – who was hanged for several murders but suspected of many more.

Mina really does paint an excellent if not grim account of Glasgow – the sense of place as well as doom and gloom is evident. She is keen to show all sides of the city and wallows in the worst of them showing them for what they are and how the poverty and conditions of the time trapped those living there.