CAMPBELL Armstrong brings us another riveting thriller set in the dark, seedy underworld of Glasgow, and the patch of Lou Perlman, a detective-sergeant in the city 'polis'.

Perlman is proud that he's a Jew living in Egypt (a city suburb). He tends to have an unsettling effect on younger members of the force, who may be a mite intimidated by the longevity of his career and his legend as a cop who knows just about every 'ned' in the city.

Perlman, whose idea of luxury is possessing more than one tea bag, steadfastly refuses to accept promotion, or, as he puts it "having his arse kicked upstairs and shackled to a desk".

In The Last Darkness we delve into Perlman's world, the dark underbelly of Glasgow.

What follows after a well-dressed men is found hanging under a railway bridge develops into a web of intrigue, greed and deceit which has Middle East overtones.

As one death follows another and Perlman has more problems on his plate than a curate in a Gorbals alehouse, Armstrong leads us up to thinking he 's got the case in the bag - but there's an unexpected sting in the tale.

Updated: 08:59 Wednesday, August 06, 2003