"To the Dogs" by Louise Welsh

An audio book.

Glasgow 2017. Jim, a professor (criminology) returns from a trip to Beijing to find that his son Eliot (23) has been caught dealing with drugs again. Maggie, his wife, (an architect) thought Eliot had sorted himself out. They have a daughter Sasha (11) too. Eddie Cranston, a lawyer who was at school with Jim, tries and succeeds (against Jim's wishes - he has shady contacts) to get the job of defending Eliot. Eliot breaks bail conditions and is imprisoned (in the same prison where Jim's father had been).

Cranston's girlfriend Becky was a student of Jim until 2 years before. Her (god?) father was a criminal. Jim gets email saying that Lejur, a Chinese student he'd talked to on his trip, has disappeared. One of Jim's PhD students kills himself (maybe because Jim neglected to send a reference about him). Jim becomes a candidate for the university headship. A new learning hub is being planned. A builder befriends him. In prison, Eliot (who owes money to suppliers) is attacked, nearly killed. The builder had offered to protect him. Cranston has money problems. Jim (without telling Maggie) pays Eliot's debts. He's sent photos showing paying the debt and photos of his wife with a builder. Saudi royalty offer the university a big donation. A colleague, Ron Ferguson, loudly protests. He deals with a student protest against the Saudi offer - "blood money".

Jim contacts a Chinese dissident trying to help Lejur. He gets a phone call from someone offering to get Lejur freed in return for a student being given a first Sasha is threatened, so he meets a blackmailer and gives him info helpful to a builder making a bid. The blackmailer knew Jim's dad. His son is the builder, Peter Hendeson, who Jim met earlier. Ron Ferguson sees the 2 of them together. There's a tussle. Ron falls and dies.

A year later, the new buildings, including the Ferguson Lecture Theatre, are about to open. Saudi money's involved.

I liked 'The Cutting Room'. However, this novel left me cold. The moral dilemmas were presented clearly and I soon suspected how Jim would deal with them. Jim's ancestry is used as the explanation of his more surprising behaviour and reactions. Maggie and Jim's reaction to Eddie's behaviour and near-death experience is explained by their unconditional love.

Other reviews

• David Robinson (Jim Brennan is, we are told, not only the son of a violent criminal but has a professorship in criminology. If having a vice-principal as your main protagonist in a crime novel is already stretching credibility, those two things stretch it even further. My own guess is that Welsh knows this, which is why she fleshes out Jim’s own back story so well)
• Susan Osborne (Her cleverly plotted novel neatly contrasts straightforward crime with the dubious morality of accepting funding from repressive regimes)
• schatjesshelves (The one thing that bothered me is Jim’s lack of understanding of criminals. Despite his upbringing and his degrees in criminology, he seems constantly surprised by their behaviour. The addition of subplots is problematic. The result is a narrative that becomes disjointed and bogged down. ... The plot becomes increasingly convoluted and I found myself becoming annoyed with the constant piling on of Jim’s problems; it felt like they were added just to confuse. The stereotypical characterization of gangsters does not impress. And then the ending seems rushed and leaves unanswered questions.)