Floyd Donnelly has spent four of his twenty-six years in prison for robbery with violence. He's foul-tempered, amoral and anti-social and yet everyone is surprised when his body's found outside Cairnburgh's only nightclub.


Detective Chief Inspector Jack Carston thinks he knows who's behind the murder: self-made man David Burchill. The problem is that the street-wise Burchill has a cast-iron alibi for that night. And he always manages to keep one step ahead of Carston's investigations. It just needs him to make one mistake, though...


There is a brutal rape in Rough Justice by Bill Kirton. It isn't there to titillate, but to carry the story forward and ultimately bring about the climax to a thoughtful and thought-provoking book. The detective leading the hunt for the killer of a young thug from a local squat is also after a local self-made man he believes to be behind various rackets and who is protected by fellow masons in the senior ranks of the police force. The book involves some very human, intelligent Scottish coppers and ought to bring Bill Kirton the attention he deserves.


Susanna Yager. Sunday Telegraph. 1 December 1996