Excellent: "just" a good, old-fashioned police procedural, but could serve any writer, in any genre, as a masterclass in narrative, pacing, characterisation and sense of place. The crimes under investigation are handled with due respect, but also with the flashes of dark humour that I'm sure police investigators must use to cope. I particularly liked the way that MacBride has his team juggle the investigations of 4+ cases: much more realistic than stories in which an inspired Lone Wolf has the luxury of concentrating on one case, to the exclusion of everything else.
In his acknowledgements, MacBride offers a profound apology to Aberdeen Tourism Board for the terrible slanders in Vol. 1. (I mean, it never rains in Aberdeen, does it?) and in Vol 2, the sun does actually shine sometimes. Great sense of place: Aberdeen is like a character in its own right.
In his acknowledgements, MacBride offers a profound apology to Aberdeen Tourism Board for the terrible slanders in Vol. 1. (I mean, it never rains in Aberdeen, does it?) and in Vol 2, the sun does actually shine sometimes. Great sense of place: Aberdeen is like a character in its own right.
Like many of Stuart MacBride's police procedurals, this was No. 1 on the Sunday Times (of London) bestseller list. The Times reviewer called it "darkly enjoyable" and Mark Billingham (author of the Tom Thorne crime novels) describes it as "wonderfully gripping and grim ... crime fiction of the highest order."
