A TIMES BEST NEW CRIME FICTION OF THE MONTH

Jim Brennan is flying high. Against all odds, he is a big man at the university, tipped for the head job and an office at the top of the ivory tower. He has a beautiful, accomplished wife and two healthy children. Jim drives an Audi, and his dog is a pedigree bichon frisé. Not bad for the son of a hardman who grew up in a room and kitchen.

But for every person who's watched his progress and wanted to hitch a lift, there's someone else desperate to drag him back down. When his son Elliot is arrested on drugs charges, Jim is approached by men he thought he had left safely in his past. Their demands threaten his family, students and reputation.

As the pressure mounts, Jim discovers he is more like his father than he thought. The question is, how far will Professor Jim Brennan go to save the life he built?

"Welsh gleefully puts her priggish protagonist through the mill in this alternative campus novel . . . Every character, even Benji the bichon frisé, is sharply and succinctly defined. To the Dogs, dripping in irony, is a gripping amorality tale" - * The Times *

"A propulsive thriller, the narrative pace rattling along at a rate of knots, combined with Welsh's seductive and perceptive prose . . . To the Dogs confirms Welsh's position in the very top tier of Scottish novelists, whatever the genre" - * Big Issue *

"To the Dogs sees Welsh in assertive form, her subject contemporary academia in thrall to wealthy students from overseas . . . Welsh exhibits her usual unassailable command of a gritty Glaswegian setting and a fatalistic perception of how quickly ordered lives can spin into chaos" - * Financial Times *

"[Welsh] explores Glaswegian masculinity and whether we can change who we are in this sharp, pungent story" - * Herald *

"Highly entertaining" - * Daily Telegraph *