Pat Feehan - Lucky Larry

Hapless Larry McAllister likes the quiet life. He’s fed up being the butt of his boss’s wrath and his wife’s ire. And that’s before the Glasgow hardmen get to him. To cap it all, he’s even getting hassled by the cops. Will Larry’s luck ever change?

On this penultimate week of my lockdown book blog, I’ve been reading and thoroughly enjoying Pat Feehan’s Glasgow-based crime novel Lucky Larry.

Lucky Larry

Extract

Larry sat open-mouthed. Could this be happening? The wheel game was obviously roulette. Arthur’s mum had wanted her son to play roulette and some card games. With her criminal background she’d clearly realised the money-spinning potential of her son’s unusual talents. But before she could put it to the test, she had died and now Larry could take on the role.

…Arthur saw it as a game, a game that he and his mother had wanted to play but that he never got the chance to try out. Well, Larry was the man who could take care of that. He realised his biscuit was still dipped in his tea. He attempted to raise it to his mouth but it collapsed into the cup in a soggy mess.

With a few encouraging nods and prompts from Larry, Arthur told him about his mum’s plan for the casino.

‘She thought we could make money because I’m good at numbers.’

Larry couldn’t believe his luck but did his best not to look too interested. ‘She was right. You definitely have a talent.’ He took a sip of his tea. ‘But casinos are big noisy places. You might feel a bit out of place there.’

Arthur looked anxious … Eventually, he blurted out the words Larry was waiting for. ‘Do you think you could take me to the casino?’

…An hour later Larry sat in a daze as he made his way home on the underground. He touched his hand to his jacket, opened it slightly and peered down into the large, inside pocket. There, peeping out at him, was the green jade Buddha. Larry’s luck was finally changing.

Review

Lucky Larry is a thoroughly enjoyable crime novel set in Glasgow. The mean streets may have long gone, but vestiges remain and Larry has to negotiate his way through.

Larry lost his job in the whisky bond after a case or two of malt disappeared, but his brother-in-law has given him a chance in his pet shop. Larry loathes it. The shop stinks, it’s always dead and he doesn’t know how his brother-in-law makes any money. Maybe that’s why he regularly goes ‘away on a wee bit of business’. Larry’s taking advantage of his absence to have a quick fag break at the shop back door when he realises a rabbit has escaped from the cage and is hopping off down the lane. As he tries to recapture it, Larry witnesses the local betting shop owner being beaten up and slashed by three vicious hardmen. When the same man is murdered two days later, the police want to know all about it.

Throughout this story, Larry gingerly picks his way with his wits through a landscape governed and controlled by two sets of hardmen. The first set is Eddie Black and his henchmen – organised crime heavies with interests in people trafficking, drugs and who knows what else. Happy to use violence to exert their authority. The other people that make Larry sweat and tremble when they push open the pet shop door are DS McNally and his sidekick DC Wallace.

All Larry wants is a bit of peace and quiet to be able to go for a pint now and then, as well as a bit of extra cash so he can treat his two kids whom he adores and who adore him in return. So, while he’s trying to keep everybody happy and off his back – the bad guys, the good guys, his wife who hen-pecks him and his brother-in-law who so disdains him – Larry is looking for a small-scale side-line of his own.

Maybe it’s strange to describe a crime novel as ‘thoroughly enjoyable’. Maybe ‘gripping’, ‘tense’, ‘edge of the seat’ and other epithets come to mind more frequently for this genre. There are plenty of tense moments in this novel, yet Pat Feehan has a gift for creating a character who would get a piece at any door. Translation – Larry’s really likeable. Even though he's thinking about cheating vulnerable Arthur now his mother’s died and left him on his own, and left a flat full of classy ornaments like that jade Buddha, which is so incredibly like the one that went missing from the Art Galleries.

Pat Feehan dovetails all the plot elements of this glorious tale into one great fit that’s wholly satisfying. He gives a nod to the conventions of the genre, situating and settling this story in the heart of Glasgow noir. At the same time, he maintains his own clear brand through characters that are surely going to become standards, and he does it with lively and one hundred percent engaging wit and humour.    

Author Pat Feehan

Q&A

CMcK: Pat, thank you so much for joining my blog to talk about your writing. I so enjoyed eavesdropping on Larry’s life! He’s totally three-dimensional, with so many contradictory, human, qualities. Despite his faults, he endeared himself to me. How did this fictional character introduce himself to you, the author?

PF: Hi Carol. I’m delighted to be here. Thanks for inviting me to be part of this. I wanted to write about a character who was a bit of a ‘chancer’, not averse to bending the rules but not fundamentally bad. I also wanted him to be slightly comic, with things rarely working out for him. I drew on similar characters from fiction and from people I’ve met in Glasgow. I’ve had many a pint and many a conversation with guys like Larry over the years.

CMcK: I felt as if I'd met Larry before, too! He's a brilliant character. What made you become a crime writer?

PF: I started writing eight years ago after signing up for creative writing classes.  I’ve always enjoyed reading various genres including non-fiction, but recently crime has been my favourite. So that seemed a natural choice. Crime fiction gives the reader, and the writer, the chance to experience the darker side of humanity, but from a safe distance. I think that’s a big part of its appeal. I also like crime writing that uses dark humour and was keen to try that out. However, I do enjoy writing in other genres and formats and one of my (non-crime) short stories was a finalist in the Scottish Arts Trust competition and appears in their anthology: https://www.storyawards.org/shortstoryfinalists2020

CMcK: This is your second novel, after Snap Judgement. Is there a third planned? Will we meet up with Larry again?

PF: I’ve just started sketching some scenes for a third novel. At the moment, Larry doesn’t feature in it. But it’s early days and you can never predict what Larry will get up to next! People have reacted very positively to Larry so we may well see more of his adventures.

CMcK: I'll look out for that! What took you down the self-publishing route?

PF: At each stage of my writing I’ve been finding out what I’m good at and what else I could try. The creative writing class focused on short fiction, I got positive feedback and people encouraged me to try a novel. One of the things I enjoy about writing is that you don’t need a complicated infrastructure: pen and paper, or a computer, and your imagination. There’s a great sense of independence. Once I’d decided to write a novel, I wanted people to be able to read it. I would have found it incredibly frustrating if I’d had to depend on someone else to give it the okay, especially if that took a long time, or never. So, self-publishing continued that sense of independence, giving me control over how and when my book would be available to readers and that was very liberating. 

Pat's first novel, Snap Judgement

CMcK: Are you in any writers’ groups?

PF: I’m in three groups and so get a wide range of support: tips on market opportunities or competitions, workshops with more experienced writers, sharing work-in-progress with other writers on a regular basis.  Getting feedback from other writers is incredibly valuable. But I also enjoy giving feedback, I think when you read and comment on someone else’s writing you learn so much that helps your own writing.

CMcK: Absolutely! Now, where can we find more information about you and your writing?

PF: I don’t have a website, though it’s on my ‘to do’ list. I’m on Facebook and Twitter and have an author page on Amazon.

https://www.facebook.com/pat.feehan.731/

https://twitter.com/pat_feehan

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pat-Feehan/e/B07LDD4HJF?ref_=dbs_p_ebk_r00_abau_000000

CMcK: That's great! Thanks so much for joining me on my blog.