A Bad, Bad Place - Hardcover

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by Frances Crawford (Author)

A gritty and poignant debut about a young working-class girl in 1979 Glasgow who happens upon the body of a murdered woman--and must face an insular community desperate for answers, as well as herself.

Glasgow, 1979: If it hadn't been for her wee stupid dog, Sid Vicious, twelve-year-old Janey Devine might never have stumbled upon the corpse of Samantha Watson. And then maybe she'd still be able to sleep at night. And maybe her nana wouldn't be so worried all the time. And maybe Billy "The Ghost" Watson, a
notorious gangster, wouldn't be on her tail--for it's Billy's daughter who was left for dead on those train tracks, and now Billy wants answers.

Fear and gossip have spread through the tight-knit community of Possilpark, and while Janey swears she can't remember the details of that morning, the cops think she's hiding something--and indeed, there's something she knows that she's not quite ready to tell anyone, not even her nana, who won't rest until this whole thing is behind them.

Shot through with remarkable humor, Frances Crawford's stunning debut is a coming-of-age whodunit, an intimate portrait of a working-class neighborhood that weaves Janey's innocent candor and her nana's hard-earned wisdom into a sweeping tale of grief and survival that marks the arrival of a major new voice in crime fiction.

Author Biography

As a passionate advocate of lifelong learning, Frances Crawford was delighted to graduate with distinction at age sixty from Glasgow University's Creative Writing program. Frances grew up in North Glasgow and credits the people of Possilpark and Milton as her writing inspiration. She still lives in Glasgow with her family and likes libraries and punk rock. A Bad, Bad Place is her debut novel.

Number of Pages: 352

Dimensions: 1.19 x 8.51 x 5.92 IN

Publication Date: March 03, 2026