Wikipedia says: Tartan Noir draws on the traditions of Scottish literature, being strongly influenced by James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. These works dwell on the duality of the soul; the nature of good and evil; issues of redemption, salvation and damnation amongst others. The Scottish concept of the "Caledonian antisyzygy", the duality of a single entity, is a key driving force in Scottish literature, and it appears especially prominently in the Tartan Noir genre.
Jimmy Bain's darkly humorous novels fit this category because the Narrator of the books (the man with no name) has a strong moral streak despite his tendency to flippancy in the face of evil. And though he pokes fun at all forms of religion, it is the funpoking of a man who essentially wants to believe in something beyond the physical.
THE BUMBLE'S END will soon be joined by THE LONG DROP GOODBYE as an ebook.
