Reg McKay – författare

Armed Candy is the true story of one woman's struggle for survival on Britain's meanest streets.Kay has spent her whole life trying to escape. Sexually abused by her grandmother, she pleaded to return to her mother's care. But instead of finding a safe haven, Kay entered a world of drug abuse, swinging and dabbling in the occult. Although still a small child, she was soon buying drugs for her mother and being moved out of her bed as orgies ensued in her home.When she tried to escape, she ended up in a violent marriage, from which she fled in fear of her life. Turning to her mother for help, she was tricked into prostitution, her own mother acting much like a pimp.Kay became a high-class call girl, but then, through a chance meeting, she got involved with the most dangerous criminal gang in Glasgow. Women associated with such gangs are often seen as decorative arm candy, but Kaywas admitted to the inner core, where she became involved in making decisions of life and death.She fell in love with the gang's equaliser, a young man feared throughout the country, and together they formed a formidable partnership. But they were too successful, and when they appeared to threaten some powerful interests they had to be taken out. The day that Kay's lover was gunned down in broad daylight saw the beginning of a reign of death in the city, as the organised crime world became paranoid and turned in on itself. For Kay, it was the beginning of her way out.

Glasgow, 1989. James Addison, aka Addie, has been a very busy man. Wanted for every type of crime for over a decade, there is only one hitch - he has never been seen, let alone caught. So, who or what is Addie? Does he even exist?When a small-time moneylender pimp is shot down on a Glasgow street, it seems to be just another gangland murder. But not for Andy Grimes, overseer of much of the city's prostitution, drug dealing and protection rackets - and the dead man's brother. When word leaks out that Addie is the killer, Grimes calls in his police allies and musters his troops. On the case is DCI Alex Birse, and old-time cop, as crooked as he is vicious. He has been after Addie for years and never got close. As the streets of Glasgow heave with police and gangsters, over in Berlin the Wall is coming down. At this time of great change, opportunity and uncertainty, the two cities are linked by loot – Bearer Bonds to be precise. Back in Glasgow, while pulling a scam on an old Jewish couple, one of Grimes' men, Angie the Gopher, finds a biscuit tin full of Bearer Bonds issued in Germany before the Second World War. Angie smells money – the bonds could be worth millions – and he scuttles back to tell his boss. Now the chase is on. Who gets the bonds? How much are they worth? Who perishes along the way? For the answers you'll have to rely on Addie. But can they catch him? The last line will reveal all . . . maybe.

On Glasgow's meanest streets life started well for the young Paul Ferris. How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security?Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. They gave him weeks to live.While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living.They would not let him.The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive.This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

Meet Allan Linton ... a detective with a difference.It’s not exactly L.A. But dead bodies are the same wherever they turn up.Allan Linton became a private detective by pure chance. He may not follow the rules, but he always gets the job done. Until he''s hired to track down a missing girl.All he''s got to go on is an old photo and the help – and hindrance – of the city''s biggest drug dealer and his eccentric associate Niddrie.Linton''s investigation yields no trace of Tina Lamont. He''s ready to throw in the towel – after all, some people want to be missing. But when a dead body turns up in London, it''s clear there’s something sinister going on. And now others are on Tina''s trail ...Tina ran away for a reason – and that reason will stop at nothing to find her.

On Glasgow's meanest streets life started well for the young Paul Ferris. How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security?Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. They gave him weeks to live.While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living.They would not let him.The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive.This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

Paul Ferris was one of Britain''s most feared gangsters for twenty-five years. Now, in Villains, Ferris reveals the real inside story of the villains he met and worked with, the common thugs and big-time players that surrounded him and the world of violence and fear he lived in every day of his life. In Glasgow, London and Manchester, Paul Ferris knew and worked with the biggest gangsters in the UK - everyone from Arthur Thompson in Glasgow to the Addams family in London and Rab Carruthers in Manchester. Villains is the story of the hard lives of hard men by someone who knows. There''s jewel heists, crime families, new stories about Glasgow''s Godfather, Arthur Thompson, a secret meeting with loyalist ''Mad Dog'' Johnny Adair, the Glasgow hard man who loved bingo, and much more. And, when it comes to villains, it takes one to know one.