Bode Gazzer and no-last-name Chub have won the lottery. The two-man white supremacist militia can arm itself to the teeth and live on beer and fried food for life. Sadly for them, there's a fly in the ointment - JoLayne Lucks has also won. Even worse, she's a woman, and worse still -- she has Black Skin. The only thing to do is cunningly beat her up and steal her ticket.
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thriller. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Carl Hiaasen: Lucky You
Bode Gazzer and no-last-name Chub have won the lottery. The two-man white supremacist militia can arm itself to the teeth and live on beer and fried food for life. Sadly for them, there's a fly in the ointment - JoLayne Lucks has also won. Even worse, she's a woman, and worse still -- she has Black Skin. The only thing to do is cunningly beat her up and steal her ticket.
Carl Hiaasen: Native Tongue
Set in Florida around a poor man's version of Disney World, you know this could get nasty, given Carl Hiaasen's views on Walt and "Team Rodent". You also know, when a policeman shoots dead a vole in chapter one, when a grandmother shoots the foot (twice) of a baddie she hired to kidnap the vole, that Hiaasen's eye for the absurd is functioning as well as ever.Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Ross Thomas: Out On The Rim
We meet one of Thomas's recurring characters, Booth Stallings, for the first time in this tale of spies, conmen and guerillas set in the Philippines. Then a WW2 second lieutenant, he watches his irregular companion behead a mad medic to keep their position safe, a hell of a bonding exercise as we later come to discover.
Ross Thomas: The Singapore Wink
Salvatore Callese and sidekick Palmisano want retired stuntman Ed Cauthorne to find Angelo Sacchetti. This is problematic as Cauthorne killed Sacchetti two years earlier in a film stunt that went wrong. It's also a problem as Sacchetti, of course, didn't die -- but had good reasons for faking it. His godfather, Mafia fixer Charles Cole, sent the two aged killers to Cauthorne because of their powers of persuasion ...
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Ross Thomas: Twilight At Mac's Place
The famous bar has long ago moved from West Germany to Washington but Mac and Padillo are ready as ever to help the good guys in this tale of old spies, dead spies and old, cold spies.
Ex CIA agent Steadfast Haynes has popped his clogs, leaving behind a potentially explosive set of memoirs. Decades of action abroad would have given him more material than Wikileaks could handle so the risk for the US government, and especially for certain smug aristocrats of the secret world, is enormous. Estranged son Granville has been bequeathed the memoirs - before the body's cold the bad guys are wondering whether to kill him or bribe him (if they can't just steal the document).
Ex CIA agent Steadfast Haynes has popped his clogs, leaving behind a potentially explosive set of memoirs. Decades of action abroad would have given him more material than Wikileaks could handle so the risk for the US government, and especially for certain smug aristocrats of the secret world, is enormous. Estranged son Granville has been bequeathed the memoirs - before the body's cold the bad guys are wondering whether to kill him or bribe him (if they can't just steal the document).
Friday, 3 December 2010
Ross Thomas: The Cold War Swap
"You can probably find a couple of thousand spots like Mac's Place in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. They are dark and quiet with the furniture growing just a little shabby, the carpet stained to an indeterminate shade by spilled drinks and cigarette ashes, and the barman friendly and fast but tactful enough to let it ride if you walk in with someone else's wife."
This Mac's Place though is in Bad Godesberg and the Cold War is going strong. East Berlin is enemy territory and one of mine hosts is an American spy, albeit reluctantly. Michael Padillo strongarms himself into partnership with McCorkle as a cover, much as he himself was strongarmed by the anonynous suits with Ivy League accents. Fortunately for the world of victims and novel readers, Mac and Padillo are tough as rattlesnakes and deeply disliking of the professional spies and hangers-on who try to mess up their lives.
Mac, apparently by chance, encounters a man on a plane. Herr Maas, a "fat little man who carries a big fat gun", just happens to be heading for Mac's Place to meet a man from the Jordanian embassy. Minutes after arrival two masked men burst in and kill the Jordanian. And it's downhill for Mac and Padillo from there as the local police, US agents and sundry others poke their noses in, all while Padillo is or isn't on another unwanted assignment.
There are American defectors, East Berlin goodies, East Berlin baddies, friends and dames (sometimes these two are the same person) along the way. The action is prefectly paced, the prose is elegant and finely honed.
So, another Cold War spy novel? Done to death? Not at all. Thomas embraces the stereotypes of the genre, the grubby but clever policeman etc, and slots them into the narrative like scenery. They form part of the circumstances but it's Mac and Padillo's actions that make the story, and a very good story it is. Fans of the genre will love this, fans of any well-written novel also.
Click for another blog's take on Cold War Swap
This Mac's Place though is in Bad Godesberg and the Cold War is going strong. East Berlin is enemy territory and one of mine hosts is an American spy, albeit reluctantly. Michael Padillo strongarms himself into partnership with McCorkle as a cover, much as he himself was strongarmed by the anonynous suits with Ivy League accents. Fortunately for the world of victims and novel readers, Mac and Padillo are tough as rattlesnakes and deeply disliking of the professional spies and hangers-on who try to mess up their lives.
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| Bad Godesberg before the spies wake up |
Mac, apparently by chance, encounters a man on a plane. Herr Maas, a "fat little man who carries a big fat gun", just happens to be heading for Mac's Place to meet a man from the Jordanian embassy. Minutes after arrival two masked men burst in and kill the Jordanian. And it's downhill for Mac and Padillo from there as the local police, US agents and sundry others poke their noses in, all while Padillo is or isn't on another unwanted assignment.
There are American defectors, East Berlin goodies, East Berlin baddies, friends and dames (sometimes these two are the same person) along the way. The action is prefectly paced, the prose is elegant and finely honed.
So, another Cold War spy novel? Done to death? Not at all. Thomas embraces the stereotypes of the genre, the grubby but clever policeman etc, and slots them into the narrative like scenery. They form part of the circumstances but it's Mac and Padillo's actions that make the story, and a very good story it is. Fans of the genre will love this, fans of any well-written novel also.
Click for another blog's take on Cold War Swap
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Ross Thomas: Missionary Stew
"He flew into Paris, the city of his birth, on a cold wet November afternoon. He flew in from Equatorial Africa wearing green polyester pants, a white T-shirt that posed the suspect question HAVE YOU EATEN YOUR HONEY TODAY? and a machine-knitted cardigan whose colour, he had finally decided, was mauve."
Morgan Citron has just been released after 13 months in a hellhole of an African jail, kept alive by bribing guards, forced to eat what he was told was monkey (remember, this book is called Misssionary Stew ...). Our hero is on his way back to the States. Looking for a quiet if impecunious life he is subtly dragged into a mix of US political chicanery and wrongdoing in South America, with cocaine and murder to spice things up.
Set against a framework of politicians jockeying for position in a future race for the presidency, ranging from murders in a Florida condo to Latin revolution, this is a typical Ross Thomas novel. The writing is elegant as ever, every word carefully chosen and anything that doesn't lend to the fun omitted. If you haven't read any of Thomas's books yet, grab this -- it's a great introduction. If you are familar with him, grab this, it's an excellent continuation.
Morgan Citron has just been released after 13 months in a hellhole of an African jail, kept alive by bribing guards, forced to eat what he was told was monkey (remember, this book is called Misssionary Stew ...). Our hero is on his way back to the States. Looking for a quiet if impecunious life he is subtly dragged into a mix of US political chicanery and wrongdoing in South America, with cocaine and murder to spice things up.
Set against a framework of politicians jockeying for position in a future race for the presidency, ranging from murders in a Florida condo to Latin revolution, this is a typical Ross Thomas novel. The writing is elegant as ever, every word carefully chosen and anything that doesn't lend to the fun omitted. If you haven't read any of Thomas's books yet, grab this -- it's a great introduction. If you are familar with him, grab this, it's an excellent continuation.
Ross Thomas
If you like elegantly written, cleverly plotted, crime/spy novels, Ross Thomas is the author for you. Understated, crudity-free, you can read his books as either straight adventure or as gently biting comment on the frailties and dishonesty of individuals and society.
Thomas shows affection for many of his characters, possibly because they're based on the people he knew in his non-writing career, and several appear and reappear:
Artie Wu, the vast, elegant Chinaman in distant line for the Chinese throne. From early, crooked youth to marriage and fatherhood (via the aristocratic Aggie), Wu is the immovable rock behind the irresistible con.
Quincy Durant: Wu's partner in crime, the scarred hard man with the sensitive soul. If you think that's a cliché, don't worry, Thomas handles it perfectly and without sentiment.
Michael Padillo: part-owner of Mac's bar, develops from grubby US spy to reluctant hero.
McCorkle: first name Cyril, hence everybody calls him Mac. Padillo's partner in business and in whatever comes along to bother them and theirs.
Throw in an a huge supporting cast from Otherguy Overby, con man, to Georgia Blue, ex secret service and now freelance crook (loveable and deadly, injustice and time in a Phillipines jail will do that). Throw in plots and sub-plots where nobody can be trusted unless you have to, and even then you keep one hand on your gun and one eye on the money. All of these and you know that whichever book you read you won't be disappointed: Ross Thomas has never written a bad book and I doubt he's ever written a bad sentence. If I had to choose one word to describe his work I'd say "polished".
Don't read him if you want buckets of blood and a headcount like a Rambo film: do read him if you like style that doesn't insult your intelligence.
Characters appear again and again, so what order should you read them in? It doesn't matter: where a bit of history is needed Thomas provides it in a few sharp sentences. His work actually went out of fashion (Clancy-like blockbusters and fancy weaponry became fashionable and de rigeur). Indeed, for seven years after his death he was out of print and I had to hunt down his books, hence some very ropey and tatty secondhand copies on the shelves. That meant I read them in the order I found them and don't feel I missed anything by so doing. Now, fortunately, many of his novels have been reprinted by the likes of the excellent St Martin's Minotaur and other sensible publishing houses.
What of Thomas's history? There are many who think that he was a spy himself -- early years spent in various countries working for various NGOs would have been a perfect cover. He certainly captures the venality and cruelty of the government agent and he shows a healthy (but well-mannered) contempt for the soulless political apes and fixers. Whatever the truth (and he's probably up there smiling gently at the debate), his writing rings true.
Thomas shows affection for many of his characters, possibly because they're based on the people he knew in his non-writing career, and several appear and reappear:
Artie Wu, the vast, elegant Chinaman in distant line for the Chinese throne. From early, crooked youth to marriage and fatherhood (via the aristocratic Aggie), Wu is the immovable rock behind the irresistible con.
Quincy Durant: Wu's partner in crime, the scarred hard man with the sensitive soul. If you think that's a cliché, don't worry, Thomas handles it perfectly and without sentiment.
Quincy and Wu appear in: Out On The Rim
Michael Padillo: part-owner of Mac's bar, develops from grubby US spy to reluctant hero.
McCorkle: first name Cyril, hence everybody calls him Mac. Padillo's partner in business and in whatever comes along to bother them and theirs.
Throw in an a huge supporting cast from Otherguy Overby, con man, to Georgia Blue, ex secret service and now freelance crook (loveable and deadly, injustice and time in a Phillipines jail will do that). Throw in plots and sub-plots where nobody can be trusted unless you have to, and even then you keep one hand on your gun and one eye on the money. All of these and you know that whichever book you read you won't be disappointed: Ross Thomas has never written a bad book and I doubt he's ever written a bad sentence. If I had to choose one word to describe his work I'd say "polished".
Don't read him if you want buckets of blood and a headcount like a Rambo film: do read him if you like style that doesn't insult your intelligence.
Characters appear again and again, so what order should you read them in? It doesn't matter: where a bit of history is needed Thomas provides it in a few sharp sentences. His work actually went out of fashion (Clancy-like blockbusters and fancy weaponry became fashionable and de rigeur). Indeed, for seven years after his death he was out of print and I had to hunt down his books, hence some very ropey and tatty secondhand copies on the shelves. That meant I read them in the order I found them and don't feel I missed anything by so doing. Now, fortunately, many of his novels have been reprinted by the likes of the excellent St Martin's Minotaur and other sensible publishing houses.
What of Thomas's history? There are many who think that he was a spy himself -- early years spent in various countries working for various NGOs would have been a perfect cover. He certainly captures the venality and cruelty of the government agent and he shows a healthy (but well-mannered) contempt for the soulless political apes and fixers. Whatever the truth (and he's probably up there smiling gently at the debate), his writing rings true.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Stieg Larsson: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Second in the Millennium Trilogy, the astonishing set of works from Stieg Larsson. Like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, this fully justifies the hype as it continues the adventures of crusading journalist Blomqvist and the anti-heroine Lisbeth Salander. Blomqvist is working on an exposé of the sex trafficking industry in Sweden, dragged deeper in after the murder of the journalists who began the investigation. Salander is implicated in those murders and goes on the run.
Larsson again weaves the pain of Lisbeth Salander around the slightly calmer journalistic happenings and we learn more about the horrendous mistreatment of Salander through the years. Abused as a child at home, abused in institutions, she has developed coping mechanisms and skills that confuse the authorities but serve to shield her and save her life. Now she cares little for society and less for the fate of those who are directly trying to harm her. The police hunt for her, initially mistaken and ultimately corrupt, is almost another plotline as she continues on her way, deciding her own directions whenever able.
The writing is gripping, the pace is relentless, the characters are finely limned. There's a thriller here, a detective novel, a walk through the Swedish justice system and a morality tale. Though very much a Swedish novel this will appeal to anyone who likes their books intelligent and demanding. One caveat: you are much better reading this after The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Larsson again weaves the pain of Lisbeth Salander around the slightly calmer journalistic happenings and we learn more about the horrendous mistreatment of Salander through the years. Abused as a child at home, abused in institutions, she has developed coping mechanisms and skills that confuse the authorities but serve to shield her and save her life. Now she cares little for society and less for the fate of those who are directly trying to harm her. The police hunt for her, initially mistaken and ultimately corrupt, is almost another plotline as she continues on her way, deciding her own directions whenever able.
The writing is gripping, the pace is relentless, the characters are finely limned. There's a thriller here, a detective novel, a walk through the Swedish justice system and a morality tale. Though very much a Swedish novel this will appeal to anyone who likes their books intelligent and demanding. One caveat: you are much better reading this after The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Stieg Larsson: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
First volume in the world-wide success that is Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. This combines a whodunit for a decades-old murder, a journalistic exposition of financial shenanigans, an array of personal relationships, a social commentary and more. Most importantly, it introduces the two main characters: financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomqvist and one of the most unusual (and unwanting) heroines of crime fiction for decades: Lisbeth Salander.
Salander is the girl with the dragon tattoo: she is the girl mistreated for years by the asylums and social services of Sweden, she is the hacker and fighter who goes unnoticed by all bar a few. Dismissed as stupid, near-autistic, a nonentity by those in authority, abused by professionals, her gifts and her courage drag her up to a crucial role in this book.
Okay then, I'm not sure if those two paragraphs will have scared you off or left you curious. Hopefully the latter and you're reading this third paragraph! Larsson's novel is a triumph of a debut: gripping, dark, incident-packed and written in a style all of his own. Slow in starting however, read only the first few pages and you will misjudge the book. Read a few chapters and you'll be hooked. You'll probably also be shocked and outraged at some of the content but that shouldn't put you off -- this is a book that plays you like a fish on a line. Order the next one in the trilogy before you finish this one -- you'll be angry with yourself if you have to wait for more.
Daftest comment from a reviewer (though overall he gave a favourable review): "It's hard to find fault with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. One must struggle with bewildering Swedish names" Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post.
Well yes, one might expect a few of those in a book set in Sweden, written by a Swede!
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Salander is the girl with the dragon tattoo: she is the girl mistreated for years by the asylums and social services of Sweden, she is the hacker and fighter who goes unnoticed by all bar a few. Dismissed as stupid, near-autistic, a nonentity by those in authority, abused by professionals, her gifts and her courage drag her up to a crucial role in this book.
Okay then, I'm not sure if those two paragraphs will have scared you off or left you curious. Hopefully the latter and you're reading this third paragraph! Larsson's novel is a triumph of a debut: gripping, dark, incident-packed and written in a style all of his own. Slow in starting however, read only the first few pages and you will misjudge the book. Read a few chapters and you'll be hooked. You'll probably also be shocked and outraged at some of the content but that shouldn't put you off -- this is a book that plays you like a fish on a line. Order the next one in the trilogy before you finish this one -- you'll be angry with yourself if you have to wait for more.
Daftest comment from a reviewer (though overall he gave a favourable review): "It's hard to find fault with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. One must struggle with bewildering Swedish names" Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post.
Well yes, one might expect a few of those in a book set in Sweden, written by a Swede!
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Stieg Larsson
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist, little known outside his homeland and even then only familiar to those who read his financial and political articles. Nothing prepared the world, and I use "world" advisedly, for the trilogy of novels he was to produce. The three manuscripts were delivered shortly before his death in 2004 and have since, as happens far too rarely, justified the rapturous clichés from all sides. They truly are amazing works, in concept, scope and execution.
Scandinavian authors (and poets and musicians) bring a certain bleakness to their work. The good ones use it as their canvas, the great writers weave it in to the lyricism of the words they produce. Larsson combines that lyricism with a style based on his journalistic expertise and an expert sense of timing to produce great sweeping novels that never let up.
I've just deleted the words "he throws in" as they would be a mis-description. Along the way he gently injects moments of pain and horror, tempering the novelist's craft with the journalist's avoidance of editorialising. Where a lesser writer might lapse into buckets-of-blood excess, he guides readers to form their own opinions and emotions. He doesn't need to state that something is wrong or a huge injustice, his readers do it for him.
After reading the trilogy I was left almost angry that his early death has robbed us of more. If this is the quality of his first works, his later ones would have been magnificent.
The Millennium Trilogy reviewed:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
There are a couple of sad footnotes to his demise. An unfinished fourth manuscript is reliably said to exist. More importantly for those close to him, he died intestate and his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, did not therefore inherit what is now estimated at a £30 million fortune from the three novels. An unseemly feud between her and his father/brother have seen her cut out of the picture. Said Stieg's father, Joakim, "We found out in January 2005 that we would automatically inherit everything. I wrote to Eva and explained that under Swedish law we had to accept the will, but we could choose to give everything - his half of the apartment, and his savings - to her. It came to around £150,000." Good of him. The only thing that all apparently agree on is that the unfinished manuscript will stay unfinished and unpublished.
"Eating in Sweden is really just a series of heartbreaks." Bill Bryson
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| Original cover: see Peter Mendelsund's blog |
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Stuart MacBride: Dark Blood
Dark in the title and dark in mood as a convicted kidnapper/rapist is resettled in Aberdeen after serving his prison time. DS Logan McRae is one of the reluctant coppers assigned to keep the man safe. Little does he know that the pitchfork-waving mob isn't the only danger and that the criminal past of the bible-reading pervert will threaten the health of more than the one who deserves it.
As a sub-plot we have Edinburgh heavies moving in, crooked property developers (and Donald Trump, not crooked, of course, up yours lawyers), Logan's getting a bit out of his depth with Wee Hamish Mowat - and Hamish's preferred depth for those who annoy him is six feet under.
Alongside MacRae's usual broad canvas of Aberdeen rain and pain he shows several smaller, gloomier scenes, well-described to lend contrast to the work, and all the better for it.
The book stands alone but I'd recommend you read one or two of the earlier Logan McRae novels first.
As a sub-plot we have Edinburgh heavies moving in, crooked property developers (and Donald Trump, not crooked, of course, up yours lawyers), Logan's getting a bit out of his depth with Wee Hamish Mowat - and Hamish's preferred depth for those who annoy him is six feet under.
Alongside MacRae's usual broad canvas of Aberdeen rain and pain he shows several smaller, gloomier scenes, well-described to lend contrast to the work, and all the better for it.
The book stands alone but I'd recommend you read one or two of the earlier Logan McRae novels first.
Stuart MacBride: Flesh House
There's a mad butcher (literally) loose in Aberdeen and he's leaving bits of his victims in the food supply chain. Never before has mince 'n' tatties seemed so unappealing as DS Logan McRae and the usual cast of granite city grotesques try to catch the baddies before the unthinkable happens and a Scottish city has to resort to salad.
We meet again mountainous DI Insch, fighting his sweet addiction and heading for personal tragedy and pain. DI Steel, frizzier and more nicotine-stained than ever, thick DC Rennie and WPC Jackie Watson. Only two of them will hit Logan McRae in this story; his heartache comes from personal and professional losses.
Stuart MacBride discusses Flesh House:
If you've read any of the other Logan McRae books then you know what you're in for here -- a bunch of beautifully drawn heroes and villains manouevering like Pacman on PCP. Only this time the goodies turn bad and the baddies get worse.
Another excellent novel from Stuart MacBride: yet to produce anything that disappoints. Buy it as a christmas present for yourself, your mum won't like it.
We meet again mountainous DI Insch, fighting his sweet addiction and heading for personal tragedy and pain. DI Steel, frizzier and more nicotine-stained than ever, thick DC Rennie and WPC Jackie Watson. Only two of them will hit Logan McRae in this story; his heartache comes from personal and professional losses.
Stuart MacBride discusses Flesh House:
If you've read any of the other Logan McRae books then you know what you're in for here -- a bunch of beautifully drawn heroes and villains manouevering like Pacman on PCP. Only this time the goodies turn bad and the baddies get worse.
Another excellent novel from Stuart MacBride: yet to produce anything that disappoints. Buy it as a christmas present for yourself, your mum won't like it.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Stuart MacBride: Broken Skin
Second in the series of Logan McRae novels, and maintaining the high standard of the first, Broken Skin is another romp through Aberdeen's lowlives and a distressing insight into the alcohol and deep-fried diet of the granite city's plods.
The two main strands of this novel are the attempt to capture a serial rapist and the search for a murderer with more interest in leather goods and marital aids than is good for you. As the victim found out. For the former we already have a strong candidate - unfortunately he's a star footballer with a sly lawyer and a high degree of cunning. Logan's now live-in girlfriend, WPC Ballbreaker Watson, is after chummy and there's a strong feeling that if she can't get her man she'll at least get his soft squidgy bits.
As to the hunt for the murderer, the denouement will have you both snorting with laughter and curling your toes. A tour de force scene for the wonderful DI Steel (she's the half-insane, chainsmoking, bacon-sarnie munching lesbian), it ends with a constable who'll never eat sliced bread again - I won't say any more lest I spoil the scene.
Throw in an eight year old who exhibits the savagery craved by a Daily Mail headline writer (knife child murders war hero) to keep DS McRae busy, plus a few more police matters to keep him from the pub, and you have yet another great read from Stuart MacBride. You can read this without having seen the first novel (though perhaps better to have read Cold Granite); if you do I can guarantee that you'll be searching out that and the rest of the series.
The two main strands of this novel are the attempt to capture a serial rapist and the search for a murderer with more interest in leather goods and marital aids than is good for you. As the victim found out. For the former we already have a strong candidate - unfortunately he's a star footballer with a sly lawyer and a high degree of cunning. Logan's now live-in girlfriend, WPC Ballbreaker Watson, is after chummy and there's a strong feeling that if she can't get her man she'll at least get his soft squidgy bits.
As to the hunt for the murderer, the denouement will have you both snorting with laughter and curling your toes. A tour de force scene for the wonderful DI Steel (she's the half-insane, chainsmoking, bacon-sarnie munching lesbian), it ends with a constable who'll never eat sliced bread again - I won't say any more lest I spoil the scene.
Throw in an eight year old who exhibits the savagery craved by a Daily Mail headline writer (knife child murders war hero) to keep DS McRae busy, plus a few more police matters to keep him from the pub, and you have yet another great read from Stuart MacBride. You can read this without having seen the first novel (though perhaps better to have read Cold Granite); if you do I can guarantee that you'll be searching out that and the rest of the series.
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