Review of TO THE DOGS by Louise Welsh (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This Scottish crime thriller begins promisingly but then becomes bogged down with subplots.

Jim Brennan’s life is a success story.  The son of a ruthless gangster, he has left behind his childhood in an impoverished and violent home.  He is now a respected professor of criminology and university vice-chancellor.  He and his accomplished wife Maggie have two children.  Things start to go awry when their son Eliot is arrested on drug charges.  To help Eliot, Jim becomes involved with shadowy figures in the criminal underworld he thought he had escaped.  Various demands threaten his family and his career.  As he faces many pressures in both his personal and professional life, will he compromise his principles?

Jim has many conflicts.  Should he protect his son by doing as Eliot’s drug bosses demand or should he let him lie in a bed of his own making in the hopes that some time in prison will reform his son?  Then he wonders what he should do when a Chinese student at the university’s satellite campus in Beijing goes missing.  There’s the issue of funding from Saudi Arabia.  Some of Jim’s colleagues and university students object to his accepting money from a regime with a terrible record of abusing human rights.  And the suicide of a student leaves him wondering about his responsibility.

Jim is a complex character.  There is no doubt that he loves his family.  He recognizes that he has not always made the best parenting choices, thereby contributing to Eliot’s irresponsible behaviour.  But he admits, more than once, to being willing to kill to protect his family.  His attempts to help students seem perfunctory, but he steps up for his family.  I could only admire his unconditional love for his son because there is virtually nothing likeable about Eliot; he seems to blame his parents for being absent, not making him their priority, for his bullying, thievery, speeding , drunkenness, and college course failures.  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.  There is little follow-through on some of these so they seem to contribute little to the overall narrative.  Is the message that there is coercion and corruption to be found among academics as well as criminals?  The author implies that universities have blood on their hands if they align themselves with regimes with deplorable human rights’ records.  Is she suggesting that universities are criminal organizations not much different from those found in the criminal underworld?

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. 

This book may appeal to others, but I found myself losing interest with the muddled combination of criminal activities and academic politics.

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.