A mystery, thriller and portrait of a vital city - Glasgow - The Bad Fire is Campbell Armstrong's finest novel since his unforgettable worldwide bestseller Jig.

Eddie Mallon has grown away from his roots, and away from the city of Glasgow. Eddie was just a child when his family fractured down the middle. He went to America with his mother; his sister Joyce stayed in Glasgow with their father, the charming, violent, mercurial Jackie Mallon.

Now Jackie has been murdered and the son he didn't know is coming home for the funeral. Try as he might, Eddie cannot resist pushing beyond the bland front presented by the local investigators. And when he does, he finds himself spiralling into the mysteries of the past as well as the present.

The Bad Fire is the place where children are told they will go if they commit a sin. Eddie is about to find out that even after all these years, the fire never goes out.

Lyrical, elegiac, suspenseful and thrilling, The Bad Fire is populated by a cast of superbly drawn individuals, with the city of Glasgow a brilliantly evoked character in its own right.