Undiscovered Scotland

A Tangled Web by Ken Lussey (15 November 2023). A fast-paced thriller set in northern Scotland. Callum Anderson returns to Sutherland to help local GP Jenny Mackay investigate the death of her husband. The authorities say it was suicide but she’s convinced he was murdered. It soon becomes clear that Iain Mackay lied to everyone who thought he loved them: especially his wife and his daughters. But that becomes the least of their problems when they come up against people who have already killed and would have no qualms about killing again.
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The High Road by Ken Lussey (15 September 2023). A fast-paced thriller set mainly in central Scotland and the far north-west. Callum Anderson is in Scotland to scatter his father’s ashes when he’s asked by a cousin to look for her missing sister, Alexandra. With his life in London in tatters and suspended from duty by the Metropolitan Police, why not? It soon becomes clear that Alex is on the run from someone who sees Callum as a means of finding her and adding to a trail of bodies across two countries. Can Callum find Alex before his own hunter finds him?
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Of Judgement Fallen by Steven Veerapen (2 March 2023). Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey’s household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience. He will not be the last to die. Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer. Joining forces with Sir Thomas More, he is forced to confront the unpopularity of his master’s rule.
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Gallow Falls by Alex Nye (28 July 2023). When a young archaeologist discovers bones at the site of her Bronze Age Broch on Gallows Hill a post-mortem reveals that the body is that of teenager, Robbie MacBride, missing for more than a decade. The archaeologist, Laura, ex-detective Callum MacGarvey and Robbie's grandmother continue to investigate, while Robbie's sister remains haunted by her inconclusive childhood flashbacks. Local landowner, George Strabane is arrested and it seems that old ghosts have been put to rest. However, the truth is darker still.
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Hide and Seek by Ken Lussey (26 May 2023). A fast-paced thriller set in Stirling Castle and more widely across Scotland during World War Two. It’s April 1943. Medical student Helen Erickson is followed from London to her aunt’s farm in Perthshire. What do her pursuers want? Meanwhile Monique Dubois is attending a secret meeting at Stirling Castle when an old adversary is murdered in a chilling echo of a dark episode in the castle’s history. Bob Sutherland and the MI11 team are called in and discover that almost everyone who knew the victim had a motive. Then Helen disappears.
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The Purified by C. F. Peterson (30 September 2021). The long-awaited sequel to "Errant Blood", a second crime thriller set in the Scottish Highland village of Duncul. Eamon's new found happiness is shattered by the type of murder that the government doesn't want to believe happens anymore. Detective Maclean thinks he has the killer, but something worse than a body has been found beneath the waters of the Minch, something that should never have been brought to the surface, and now it's not just TV crews that are watching the village.
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The Stockholm Run by Ken Lussey (26 May 2022). A fast-paced thriller set largely in Edinburgh and Stockholm during World War Two. It's March 1943. The death of an intruder in a hidden bunker leads to a much larger secret buried beneath Edinburgh Castle. As the mystery unravels, Bob Sutherland and Monique Dubois are sent to Stockholm, a city supposedly at peace in a world at war, to take delivery of a message of critical national importance. Or is it a trap? Can their relationship survive what they uncover? Will they live long enough for that to matter?
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The Death of Remembrance by Denzil Meyrick (2 June 2022). It's 1983, and a beat constable walks away from a bar where he knows a crime is about to be committed. In the present, an old fisherman is found dead by the shoreline and a stranger with a mission moves into a shabby Kinloch flat. Meanwhile, D.C.I. Jim Daley is trying to help Brian Scott stay sober, and the good people of Kinloch are still mourning the death of one of their own. As past and present collide, Daley finds himself face to face with old friends and foes.
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The Darker the Night by Martin Patience (2 February 2023). A referendum on Scottish independence is only days away. All signs point to victory for the nationalists. But when senior civil servant John Millar is shot in a Glasgow alley on a furiously rain-soaked night, his death triggers a chain of catastrophic events. Into this chaos walks reporter Fulton Mackenzie. A man used to seeing beneath the surface to find the truth. Who was John Millar? Who wanted him dead? And why? And the biggest question of all – who is trying to alter the future path of an entire nation?
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No Sweet Sorrow by Denzil Meyrick (1 June 2023). A potent new drug has hit the streets of Kinloch, and DCI Daley and Scott are struggling to catch the notorious gang behind this evil trade. After a party of Oxford students arrives in town for a camping trip before a Himalayan expedition, one of the group seeks out an illegal high and is violently assaulted. However, these students are well connected, and this brings further unexpected problems for Daley. Ultimately, he and Scott will discover crimes as disturbing as anything they have ever confronted.
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Terms of Restitution by Denzil Meyrick (3 March 2022). Gangland boss Zander Finn is so sickened by the brutal murder of his son in a Paisley pub, he decides to change his life. Following the advice of his priest and mentor, he moves clandestinely to London and becomes an ambulance driver. But when his old second-in-command Malky Maloney tracks him down on a London street, Finn knows he must return. Both his real family and his crime family face an existential threat from Albanian mobsters determined to take control of the Scottish underworld.
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Bloody Orkney by Ken Lussey (29 June 2021). Bloody Orkney is a fast-paced thriller set in Scotland during World War Two. It’s November 1942. Bob Sutherland, Monique Dubois and the Military Intelligence 11 team fly in to review security in Orkney, home to one of the most important and most heavily defended naval anchorages in the world. But an unidentified body has been found. It becomes clear that powerful men have things they’d rather keep hidden and MI11’s arrival threatens the status quo. Then Bob stumbles over a ghost from his past and things get far too personal.
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The Devil's Blaze: Sherlock Holmes: 1943 by Robert J. Harris (15 September 2022). Prominent figures in science and the military are bursting into flames. Convinced that the Germans have deployed a new terror weapon, a desperate government turns to the one man who can help - Sherlock Holmes. The quest for a solution drives Holmes into an uneasy alliance with the country’s most brilliant scientific genius, Professor James Moriarty. Only Holmes knows that, behind his façade of respectability, Moriarty is the mastermind behind a vast criminal empire.
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Penitent by Mark Leggatt (22 June 2023). Meet Hector Lawless. As a brilliant Edinburgh lawyer, Hector has a reputation for untangling the cases that no other lawyer can handle. When Hector is approached with a highly sensitive case that reaches from one of Edinburgh’s most exclusive private schools to 10 Downing Street, he relishes the chance to bring true evil to justice. Hector must call on every one of the skills he has cultivated to survive. The Penitent must accept their penance. As Hector’s enemies are about to discover, it really is the quiet ones you have to worry about.
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Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects by Fiona Erskine (17 June 2021). As the old chemical works in Leith are demolished a long deceased body encrusted in phosphate rock is discovered. Seated at a card table he has ten objects laid out in front of him. Whose body is it? How did he die and what is the significance of the objects? A mix of science and anecdote, layered and interconnected stories present the chemical works as a complex, beautiful, dangerous and integrated whole; and explores what happens to those left-behind as manufacturing work disappears.
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Die Every Day: For the rest of your life by Gordon Bickerstaff (6 October 2019). A woman is murdered in a Glasgow city hotel room. Police have everything they need to charge a suspect. If he faces trial, the truth will cause international outrage and the government will fall. Faceless mandarins in corridors of power are determined he will remain silent. Lambeth Group agent, Zoe Tampsin, is ordered to make him plead guilty. What she discovers will place her next in line to be murdered. Who is pulling the strings? What secrets are they hiding?
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The Devil's Cut by Andrew James Greig (28 October 2021). When a distillery owner's body is discovered on top of a remote Scottish mountain, forensics confirm that he died of natural causes. DI Corstophine's concerns are raised however, when the dead's man eccentric sister receives a message, apparently from the beyond the grave. The police are dismissive until it appears the devil himself is intent on attacking other family members. Why is his daughter kept locked and sedated in her room in the baronial mansion? Who or what is stalking his son?
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A Rattle of Bones by Douglas Skelton (5 August 2021). In 1752 James of the Glen was executed for murder. He was almost certainly innocent. When banners are placed at his gravesite claiming that his namesake, James Stewart, is innocent of murder, reporter Rebecca Connolly smells a story. He has been in prison for ten years for the brutal murder of his lover, lawyer and politician Murdo Maxwell. Rebecca soon discovers that Maxwell believed he was being followed prior to his murder and his phones were tapped. Why are criminals from Glasgow and Inverness so interested in the case?
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The Goldenacre by Philip Miller (2 June 2022). The Goldenacre – a masterpiece by the painter and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh – has been given to the people of Scotland. The beautiful canvas enthrals the art world, but behind it lies a dark and violent mystery. Thomas Tallis, an art expert with a trouble past, is trying to uncover the truth about the painting's complex history, while newspaper reporter Shona Sandison is investigating a series of shocking murders in Edinburgh. Both investigators soon become engulfed in the machinations of money, crime and identity.
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Thunder Bay by Douglas Skelton (7 March 2019). When reporter Rebecca Connolly is told of Roddie Drummond's return to the island of Stoirm she senses a story. Fifteen years before he was charged with the murder of his lover, Mhairi. When he was found Not Proven, Roddie left the island and only his sister knew where he was or what he was doing. Now he has returned for his mother's funeral - and it will spark an explosion of hatred, bitterness and violence. Defying her editor's wishes, Rebecca is determined to discover the secrets surrounding Mhairi's death.
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The Danger of Life by Ken Lussey (10 May 2019). It is late 1942. Group Captain Robert Sutherland's first week in charge of Military Intelligence 11's operations in Scotland is not going smoothly. An investigation into a murder at the Commando Basic Training Centre in the Highlands take an even darker turn that draws Bob in personally. He is also trying to discover who was behind an attempt to steal an advanced reconnaissance aircraft; and then Monique Dubois in MI5 asks for his help with an operation of hers in Glasgow that has gone badly wrong.
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All That’s Dead by Stuart MacBride (30 May 2019). Inspector Logan McRae is looking forward to a nice simple case – something to ease him back into work after a year off on the sick. But the powers-that-be have other ideas… The high-profile anti-independence campaigner, Professor Wilson, has gone missing, leaving nothing but bloodstains behind. There’s a war brewing between the factions for and against Scottish Nationalism. Infighting in the police ranks. And it’s all playing out in the merciless glare of the media.
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Murder at the Music Factory by Lesley Kelly (23 April 2020). The Health Enforcement Team is struggling with the aftermath of IT specialist Bryce's sabotage of government systems. As Bryce threatens to shoot a civil servant every day until his demands are met, things are in melt-down. Tasked with finding out who turned Bryce, the team track down the last two groups he was monitoring - a group of student eugenicists who think the Virus should be allowed to take the weak, and a former progressive rock musician, now a survivalist.
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Where Demons Hide by Douglas Skelton (7 July 2022). Something scared Nuala Flaherty to death. When her body is found in the centre of a pentagram on a lonely moor, journalist Rebecca Connolly is determined to find out what. Was she killed by supernatural means, or is there a more down-to-earth explanation? Rebecca’s investigation leads her to a mysterious cult and local drug dealings. But what she doesn’t know is that crime matriarch Mo Burke still has her in her crosshairs. Mo wants payback for the death of her son, and after one failed attempt to hurt Rebecca, this time it could be lethal.
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Thirty-One Bones by Morgan Cry (2 July 2020). When Daniella Coulstoun's estranged mother Effie dies in Spain under suspicious circumstances, she feels it's her duty to fly out for the funeral. On arrival, Daniella is confronted by a dangerous group of expat misfits who claim that Effie stole huge sums of cash from them. They want the money back and Daniella is on the hook for it. When a suspicious Spanish detective begins to probe Effie's death and a London gangster hears about the missing money, Daniella faces threats on every front
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Acts of Allegiance by Peter Cunningham (21 September 2017). Paris: May, 1969. Scents of spring blossom, coffee and high-octane petrol. Irish diplomat Marty Ransom has been summoned to meet Charles J. Haughey, the Irish Minister for Finance what's decided between them will change the course of Irish history. The Minister wants a go-between with the new IRA faction in the North: he knows a key player is Marty's cousin Ignatius. He has no idea Marty is reporting to MI5 in Dublin. As the deadly endgame draws near, Marty must choose..
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Her Cold Eyes by Tony Black (24 April 2018). She's missing, and her mother knows who to blame. But nobody's listening. When the case falls to DCI Bob Valentine, however, he has no choice but to listen. Haunted by the girl's cold gaze and her mother's hurt, the detective soon finds himself at the centre of the most harrowing investigation of his police career. Uncovering a ring of ritualistic abuse that leads to the highest echelons of a degraded and Satanic society, Valentine wonders how the world could contain such evils. And then the bodies start to mount.
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Eyes Turned Skywards by Ken Lussey (31 May 2018). Wing Commander Robert Sutherland has left his days as a pre-war detective far behind him. Or so he thinks. On 25 August 1942 the Duke of Kent, brother of King George VI, is killed in northern Scotland in an unexplained air crash; a second crash soon after suggests a shared, possibly sinister, cause. Bob Sutherland is tasked with visiting the aircraft's base in Oban and the first crash site in Caithness to gather clues as to who might have had reason to sabotage one, or both, of the aircraft.
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A Study in Crimson: Sherlock Holmes 1942 by Robert J. Harris (1 October 2020). It is 1942 in London. A killer going by the name of 'Crimson Jack' is stalking the wartime streets of the city, murdering women on the exact dates of the infamous Jack the Ripper killings of 1888. Has the Ripper somehow returned from the grave? Is the self-styled Crimson Jack a descendant of the original Jack or merely a madman obsessed with those notorious killings? In desperation Scotland Yard turn to Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective.
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Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (26 March 2020). Just outside a sleepy Highland town, a gamekeeper is found hanging lifeless from a tree. The local police investigate an apparent suicide, only to find he's been snared as efficiently as the rabbit suspended beside him. As the body count rises, the desperate hunt is on to find the murderer. But the town doesn't give up its secrets easily, and who makes the intricate clockwork mechanisms carved from bone and wood found at each crime? Whirligig is a tartan noir like no other; an expose of the corruption pervading a small Highland community.
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The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf by Alexander McCall Smith (8 June 2023). The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn of sensitive crime. Ulf tries his best to stay above the fray. But when Anna appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, it seems she may be putting her own job prospects above their friendship. In the midst of all this, Ulf embarks on an important inquiry: a man's cabin has mysteriously disappeared and Ulf is tasked with finding out what happened. How exactly does one steal a house?
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The Janus Run by Douglas Skelton (20 September 2018). When Coleman Lang finds his girlfriend Gina dead in his New York City apartment, he thinks nothing could be worse... until he becomes the prime suspect. Desperate to uncover the truth and clear his name, Coleman hits the streets. But there's a deranged Italian hitman, an intuitive cop, two US Marshals, his ex-wife and the mysterious organisation known only as Janus on his tail. And trying to piece together Gina's murky past without dredging up his own seems impossible.
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The End of the Line by Gillian Galbraith (6 June 2019). After the death of a leading haematologist, antiquarian book dealer Anthony Sparrow clears out his mansion of its books and papers. He soon begins to question the real circumstances of the old man's death: was he in fact murdered? The answer might be found in the personal papers which Sparrow unearths. But as he closes in on the answer, the perspective and everything which he was sure about dissolves into darkness and shadows.
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Reap As You Sow by David Hutchison (15 August 2021). When a mutilated body is washed up on Portobello Beach, followed by an explosion in a nearby street, DCI Mike Steel and DS Robin Moss start an investigation which leads them from Edinburgh to Latvia into a world where nothing is as it seems. Growing up in Edinburgh, David became fascinated by the rich history of Scotland’s capital, and especially with some of its leading characters. As a “Gentleman by day, thief by night,” Deacon William Brodie – the lead in David’s first novel was one such character.
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Tag - You're Dead by Douglas Skelton (27 April 2017). Maverick investigator Dominic Queste is on the trail of missing butcher Sam Price. But what began as a simple favour for his girlfriend quickly descends into a battle for survival against an enemy who has no qualms about turning victims into prime cuts. Amidst a twisted game of cat and mouse, suspicious coppers, vicious crooks and a seemingly random burglary, Queste has to keep his wits about him. Or he might just find himself on the butcher's block.
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The Book of Skulls by David Hutcheson (16 April 2020). A Victorian tale of gender-bending, hidden identity, obsession and gruesome murder, set in Edinburgh in 1875. Liz Moliette is one of only two female students at the Edinburgh Medical School. In dire need of funds, Liz becomes assistant to gruff lecturer and police surgeon Dr Florian Blyth. When a series of grisly murders take place the doctor and Liz help Inspector Macleod in his investigation. The search for the killer comes dangerously close to Liz as she uncovers her own family secrets.
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Fairy Rock by Stephen Watt (21 September 2019). A crime novel in verse. Glasgow is correctly lauded for its wonderful characters and hospitality but at the turn of the Millennium it was dubbed the "Murder Capital of Europe" with secterian divisions and organised crime rife in the city. Four of its natives have been raised around the city's Bridgeton area, cultivated by its ill-omened beliefs, and now have to separately find a way to subsist. But one crime family firmly believes in the tradition of torture and a novel way of disposing of its detractors.
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Fixed Odds by William McIntyre (4 July 2019). (A Robbie Munro Thriller) Defence lawyer Robbie Munro is looking forward to the birth of his second child, while at work he’s called to defend George ‘Genghis’ McCann on a charge of burglary, and Oscar ‘the Showman’ Bowman, snooker champion, on one of betting fraud. Genghis has stolen – and lost – a priceless masterpiece, while Oscar doesn’t seem to have a defence of any kind. With promises of great rewards, Robbie has never been more tempted to fix the legal odds in his favour.
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Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre (19 July 2018). There has never been a homicide on Ciudad de Cielo. It's the 'city in the sky', where hundreds of scientists and engineers live and work in Earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars. When a mutilated body is found on CdC, the eyes of the world are watching. Top-of-the-class Detective Blake is sent to team up with CdC's Freeman. But the mismatched duo must learn to cooperate quickly, before they become the killer's next victims.
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Ed's Dead by Russel D. McLean (16 March 2017). Jen works in a bookshop and likes the odd glass of Prosecco... and is branded The Most Dangerous Woman in Scotland. Jen Carter is a failed writer with a rubbish boyfriend, Ed. That is, until she accidentally kills him. Now that Ed s dead, she has to decide what to do with his body, his drugs and a big pile of cash. And how to escape the hitman who s been sent to recover Ed's stash. Soon Jen's on the run from criminals, corrupt police officers and the prying eyes of the media.
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Murder in the Merchant City by Angus McAllister (7 February 2019). Annette Somerville, a young single mother, earns her living in a high-class Glasgow sauna parlour, keeping her respectable home life separate from her professional activities. During a series of murders in the city, Annette realises that all of the victims have been regular customers. What should Annette do? No one else seems interested, and going to the police will cost Annette her job. But Annette's new boyfriend could be the murderer's next victim.
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The Abbey Close by Steven Veerapen (29 June 2018). As the armies of Henry VIII and James V prepare for battle, Catholic exile Simon Danforth must decide his loyalties. Cast out of England, he is drawn by private grief to a secretive Scottish abbey, and the mystery of a missing girl who worked there. Though Paisley and its Abbey refuse to give up their secrets, they do give up their dead. In the tense and suspicious atmosphere of a nation at war, Danforth uncovers murder, madness, and sexual desire infecting the sacred house and its neighbouring town.
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Lest You Be Judged by David Hutchison (28 August 2019). When a High Court Judge is brutally murdered, DCI Mike Steel begins to piece together the jigsaw which will find his killer. Aided by his new sergeant, DS Robin Moss, a fast-track university graduate, they discover there has been an escape from a secure mental hospital and, after a Priest is murdered, they realise they are on the heels of a serial killer. The jigsaw pieces appear to be a perfect fit until Moss uncovers one missing, and horrifying, piece.
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The Health of Strangers by Lesley Kelly (15 June 2017). Nobody likes the North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team, least of all the people who work for it. An uneasy mix of seconded Police and health service staff, Mona, Bernard and their colleagues stem the spread of the Virus, a mutant strain of influenza. Now two young female students are missing. Why were they drinking in a biker's bar? And why is the German government interfering in the investigation? Mona and Bernard need to fight their way through lies and intrigue, and find the missing girls.
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The Blood is Still by Douglas Skelton (5 March 2020). When the body of a man in eighteenth-century Highland dress is discovered on the site of the Battle of Culloden, journalist Rebecca Connolly takes up the story for the Chronicle. Meanwhile, a film being made about the '45 Rebellion has enraged a right-wing group linked to death threats. When a second body - this time in the Redcoat uniform of the government army - is found in Inverness, Rebecca finds herself drawn ever deeper. Are the murders connected to politics, a local gang war or something else entirely?
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Wrecked: A Gus Dury novel by Tony Black (5 November 2019). Edinburgh’s Gus Dury is back ... and so are his troubles. After swearing off the drink and reviving his flagging writing career on a webzine, Dury stumbles across a missing person's case that he can't say no to. He thinks the job’s a slam-dunk, one missing employee, one decent-sized paycheck, but, when he’s woken by police and told the man he’d just found has been tortured to death, Dury realises he’s already over his head. Warring drug gangs, corrupt cops and the siren’s call of drink all want to see Dury wrecked.
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Hue and Cry by Shirley McKay (16 February 2017). 1579, St. Andrews. A thirteen-year old boy meets his death on the streets of the university city of St. Andrews and suspicion falls upon one of the regents at the university, Nicholas Colp. Hew Cullan, a young lawyer recently returned home from Paris, uncovers a complex tale of passion and duplicity, of sexual desire in tension with the repressive atmosphere of the Protestant Kirk and the austerity of the academic cloister.
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Close Quarters by Angus McAllister (2 May 2017). Walter Bain is the self-appointed dictator of the tenement at 13 Oldberry Road in Glasgow's cosmopolitan west end. For years, Walter has striven to impose his family values: stairs must be regularly washed, noise kept down, and wheelie bins moved back and forth at the correct times. When Walter is found murdered, there are plenty of suspects among his neighbours. Close Quarters is a comedy that satirises the traditional and sentimental view of Glasgow's tenement life by placing it in a modern setting.
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The Damselfly by SJI Holliday (2 February 2017). An unsolved murder. A community turned against each other. A killer close to home... Katie Taylor is the perfect student. She is bright and funny, she has a boyfriend who adores her and there are only a few months left of school before she can swap Banktoun for the bright lights of London. Life gets even better when she has an unexpected win on a scratch card. But then Katie's luck runs out. Her tragic death instead becomes the latest in a series of dark mysteries blighting Banktoun.
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Heartman by Mark Wright (1 July 2014). Bristol in the early 1960s: Joseph Tremaine Ellington is a Barbadian expoliceman who, like many of his generation in the West Indies, has come to the UK to make a new life in the mother country. But the land of opportunity is not all it is cut out to be. It is not just the weather that is cold: so is the welcome. Then he is asked to track down a young West Indian girl who has disappeared.
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Private Investigations by Quintin Jardine (3 November 2016). Former Chief Constable Bob Skinner has uncovered his fair share of shocking crime scenes over his thirty-year career. But none could prepare him for the sight he finds stowed in the back of a stolen car that collides with his on the outskirts of Edinburgh. As his former colleagues investigate, Skinner takes on an unusual commission of his own. The body count rises, motives appear, the hunt goes global, and potential conflicts surface.
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Never Proven by Bill Daly (9 November 2018). IT consultant John Preston is found murdered on the streets of Glasgow, mobile missing, a hefty cash sum in his jacket. To DCI Charlie Anderson, it smells like a trap: a victim lured to his death by someone he knew. On the same night, two local villains enact a grisly crucifixion scene in the toilets of a run-down pub. In Anderson's fourth assignment, coppers' instincts count for nothing. Nor, it seems, does the truth. As the cases keep intertwining, a trail of shocking revelations keeps the answers just beyond reach.
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Torn by Anne Randall (4 April 2017). The court case had been harrowing. The fifteen jurors sat in silence while the prosecution produced evidence of how a man with obsessive fantasies had turned into a killer. Fourteen of the jurors were repulsed. One man was secretly enthralled. A new world of possibility had opened up for him. When an actress is found dead, the ligature marks suggest that she had been involved in extreme games. DIs Wheeler and Ross begin to investigate her death.
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Bloody Scotland by Lin Anderson and Others (7 September 2017). In Bloody Scotland twelve of Scotland's best crime writers use the sinister side of the country's built heritage in stories that are by turns gripping, chilling and redemptive. Stellar contributors Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Gordon Brown, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride explore the thrilling potential of Scotland's iconic sites and structures.
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The Right Hand Man by Lee Cooper (6 July 2018). Deep in various criminal empires, Davie Rhodes is a vindictive, deadly and notorious bare-knuckle legend without remorse for his victims. From a grim childhood in the Glasgow Gorbals slums, to working for The Godfather, then gunrunning for the IRA, he’s a survivor. In the shadows between cities, he leaves a trail of destruction his own blood must resolve. And after causing his wife’s suicide, he flees Aberdeen, abandoning son Joe to work for Jack Gallagher in Liverpool’s seedy underworld.
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State Secrets by Quintin Jardine (19 October 2017). Trouble has a habit of following Bob Skinner around. So it is that he finds himself in the Palace of Westminster as a shocking act befalls the nation. Hours before the Prime Minister is due to make a controversial statement, she is discovered in her office with a letter opener driven through her skull. Is the act political? Personal? Or even one of terror? Skinner is swiftly enlisted by the Security Service to lead the investigation. He has 48 hours to crack the case before the press unleash their wrath.
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Good News, Bad News by William H. S. McIntyre (20 April 2017). Life's full of good news and bad news for defence lawyer Robbie Munro. Good news is he's in work, representing judge's granddaughter Antionia Brechin on a drugs charge. His old client Ellen has won the lottery and she's asked Robbie to find her husband Freddy who's disappeared after swindling Jake Turpie, but he's not willing to bury the hatchet unless it's in Freddy's head. Robbie juggles cases and private life with his usual dexterity, but the more he tries to fix things the more trouble everyone's in.
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Blood Torment by T.F. Muir (2 March 2017). When a three-year old girl is reported missing, DCI Andy Gilchrist suspects that the child's mother may be responsible for her daughter's disappearance. The case becomes politically sensitive when Gilchrist learns that the girl is the grand-daughter of Dougal Davis, a former MSP who was forced to resign after being accused of physically abusing his third wife. But then the case turns on its head when Gilchrist learns that a paedophile, recently released from prison, now lives in the same area as the missing child.
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The Body in the Bracken by Marsali Taylor (24 November 2016). Cass Lynch has been persuaded to spend Christmas in the Highlands with her friend DI Gavin Macrae, but their romantic walk by the loch is cut short when they find a skeleton among the bracken. Back home in Shetland, Cass hears about Ivor Hughson, who left his wife and failed business months ago, and hasn't been heard of since. A near-disaster aboard Cass's yacht suggests someone wants to stop her asking questions about his disappearance.
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The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid by Craig Russell (4 August 2016). Lennox liked Quiet Tommy Quaid. Perhaps it's odd for a private detective to like a career thief, but Quiet Tommy Quaid was the sort of man everyone liked, with no vices to speak of, aside from his excessive drinking and womanising, but then in 1950s Glasgow those are practically virtues. And besides,Quiet Tommy never once used violence. But then Tommy turns up dead.
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Last Will by William McIntyre (16 November 2017). Blood is thicker than water - but it's not as hard as cash. The trial of Robbie Munro's life: one month to prove he's fit to be a father. No problem. Apart, that is, from a double-murder in which Robbie's landlord, Jake Turpie, is implicated. Psycho-Jake demands Robbie's undivided attention and is prepared to throw money at the defence - along with some decidedly dodgy evidence. Robbie has a choice: look after his daughter or look after his client. Can the two be combined to give the best of both worlds?
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Miss Blaine's Prefect and The Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas (25 January 2018). Fifty-something Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is thrilled when selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a one-week mission in 19th century Russia: to pair up the beautiful, shy, orphaned heiress Lidia Ivanovna with Sasha, a gorgeous young man of unexplained origins. Then the body count starts to rise.
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I'll Keep You Safe by Peter May (11 January 2018). Niamh and Ruairidh Macfarlane co-own the Hebridean company Ranish Tweed. On a business trip to Paris to promote their luxury brand, Niamh learns of Ruairidh's affair, and then looks on as he and his lover are killed by a car bomb. Niamh begins to look back on her life with Ruairidh, desperate to identify anyone who may have held a grudge against him. The French police, meanwhile, have ruled out terrorism, and ruled in murder - and sent Detective Sylvie Braque to shadow their prime suspect: Niamh.
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A Breath on Dying Embers by Denzil Meyrick (11 July 2019). When the luxury cruiser, hastily renamed Great Britain, berths in Kinloch harbour, the pressure is on DCI Jim Daley. The UK Government are taking a high-powered group of businessmen and women on a tour of the British isles, golfing and seeing the sights, as part of a push for global trade. But when one of the crew goes missing, and an elderly local ornithologist disappears, will the pressure become too great? Then the arrival of a face from the past, sends Daley's world into a tailspin.
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Cross Purpose by Claire MacLeary (23 February 2017). When her disgraced ex-police husband suddenly dies, Maggie Laird's unremarkable life in an Aberdeen suburb is turned upside down. With the bills mounting and the pressure on, she's forced to take on her husband's struggling detective agency, enlisting the help of her neighbour 'Big Wilma'. And so an unlikely but very determined partnership is born. Then a crudely mutilated body is found by a gang of kids.
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The Crown Agent by Stephen O'Rourke (7 November 2019). A ship adrift, all hands dead. A lighthouse keeper murdered in the night. The Crown needs a man to find the truth. In 1829, disillusioned young doctor, Mungo Lyon, is recruited by the Crown to investigate a mysterious murder and shipwreck off the coast of Scotland. His adventures lead him on a pursuit across the Scottish countryside, to kidnap and treason, an unwanted trip to the West Indies, an insurrection and love.
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Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin (3 November 2016). For John Rebus, forty years may have passed, but the death of beautiful, promiscuous Maria Turquand still preys on his mind. Murdered in her hotel room on the night a famous rock star and his entourage were staying there, Maria's killer has never been found. Meanwhile, the dark heart of Edinburgh remains up for grabs. A young pretender, Darryl Christie, may have staked his claim, but a vicious attack leaves him weakened and vulnerable.
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Follow the Dead by Lin Anderson (10 August 2017). On holiday in the Scottish Highlands, forensic scientist Dr Rhona MacLeod helps a mountain rescue team after a mysterious plane crash-lands. Added to that, a nearby climbing expedition has left three young people dead. Meanwhile in Glasgow, DS McNab’s raid produces a massive haul of cocaine, and one of the underage girls found partying in the raided club reveals she was smuggled into Scotland via Norway, and it seems the crashed plane in the Cairngorms may be linked.
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Errant Blood by C. F. Peterson (25 March 2017). Eamon Andrew has fought in Afghanistan and failed in the city. Now he wants to shut himself away in Duncul Castle, his childhood home in the Scottish Highlands. But a boy has been murdered in the local village, and the people investigating are not the police. The local drug dealer wants him dead. And the girl he has tried to forget is still beautiful and living next door. Meanwhile, on the other side of Europe, and illegal immigrant and a billionaire scientist are heading in his direction.
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The Killing Connection by T.F. Muir (8 June 2017). A woman's body is washed up on the rocks by the castle ruins in St Andrews with evidence of strangulation, and no ID. Two days into the case, a call from another woman claiming to be the victim's friend could be DCI Andy Gilchrist's first solid lead. But when she fails to turn up for an interview, Gilchrist fears the worst. The next day, they find her battered body. Gilchrist's focus centres on his prime suspect, who seems to have no history beyond three years. But before Gilchrist can bring him in for questioning, he vanishes.
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Songs by Dead Girls by Lesley Kelly (19 April 2018). When Scotland's leading virologist goes missing, Mona and Paterson from the Health Enforcement Team are dispatched to London to find him. Mona has to deal with a boss who isn't speaking to her, placate the Professor's over-bearing assistant, and outwit the people who will stop at nothing to make sure the academic stays lost. Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Bernard is searching for a missing prostitute, while Maitland is trying to placate the Chair of the Parliamentary Virus Committee.
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The Golden Voyage by Malcolm Archibald (15 August 2016). When Detective Sergeant James Mendick is sent to find the Duke of Mathon's stolen yacht, he soon realises that this is no ordinary case. Trapped aboard a mysterious ship sailing the South Atlantic, he finds himself in a world of cut-throats, criminals and a captain strangely obsessed with Greek mythology. Mendick must find out who would go to such lengths to steal a steam yacht, and why?
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After He Died by Michael J Malone (20 September 2018). When Paula Gadd’s husband of almost thirty years dies, just days away from the seventh anniversary of their son's death, her world falls apart. She is stunned when a young woman approaches her at the funeral service, and slips something into her pocket. A note suggesting that Paula’s husband was not all that he seemed. When the two women eventually meet, a series of revelations challenges everything Paula thought they knew, and it becomes immediately clear that both women’s lives are in danger.
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Want You Gone by Chris Brookmyre (20 April 2017). Sam Morpeth is growing up way too fast, left to fend for a younger sister with learning difficulties when their mother goes to prison and watching her dreams of university evaporate. But Sam learns what it is to be truly powerless when a stranger begins to blackmail her online. Meanwhile, reporter Jack Parlabane has finally got his career back on track, but his success has left him indebted to a volatile source on the wrong side of the law. Now that debt is being called in, and it could cost him everything.
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A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders by Malcolm Archibald (9 August 2013). Detective Mendick Returns. When Sergeant Mendick is sent to Dundee to collect a prisoner, he expects a speedy return to London but instead an unfortunate turn of events see him retained to help solve a particularly gruesome murder. Within days Mendick finds himself leading the hunt for the mysterious China Jim who appears to control the criminal classes of Dundee through fear.
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Blood for Blood by J. M. Smyth (14 July 2016). Red has survived the barbarity and abuse of the orphanage. His twin brother Sean has not been so lucky. Seeking vengeance, Sean kidnaps a policeman's daughter, and leaves her to be brought up in care. Now, twenty years later, the time has come for him to wreak a shocking revenge on those he holds responsible for his brother's death. Yet even the best laid plans can go awry.
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For Those Who Know the Ending by Malcolm Mackay (14 July 2016). Usman Kassar is comfortable in his older brother's shadow, for now. Staying off the radars of the big players lets him plan big scores with little danger of detection. Martin Sivok is a gunman without a target. But when you desperately need doors to start opening, someone like Usman might just persuade you to pull at the wrong handle, like the one that opens a safe full of dirty money that someone very badly wants back.
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Dog Fight by Michael J. Malone (6 April 2017). Kenny O Neill, a villain with a conscience, returns in a hard-hitting thriller of exploitation, corruption and criminal gangs. When Kenny s cousin, Ian, comes to the aid of a fellow ex-squaddie in a heap of trouble, he gets caught up in the vicious underground fight scene, where callous criminals prey on the vulnerable, damaged and homeless. With Ian in too deep to escape, Kenny has no option other than to infiltrate the gang for the sake of his family.
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The Lewis Man by Peter May (5 January 2012). An unidientified corpse is recovered from a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis. At first it is believed to be ancient, until someone notices the Elvis tattoo on the corpse's arm. Fin Macleod has left the police to live on Lewis, but is drawn into the investigation. The follow up to the superb "The Black House" and the second book in the Lewis trilogy.
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Willow Walk by SJI Holliday (10 June 2016). When a woman is brutally attacked on a lonely country road by an escaped inmate from a nearby psychiatric hospital, Sergeant Davie Gray must track him down before he strikes again. But Gray is already facing a series of deaths connected to legal highs and a local fairground, as well as dealing with his girlfriend Marie's bizarre behaviour. As Gray investigates the crimes, he suspects a horrifying link between Marie and the man on the run.
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Summoning the Dead by Tony Black (6 October 2016). A young child lies mummified in a barrel. His hands, cable-tied, appear to be locked in prayer. As forensic officers remove the boy they are in for an even bigger shock – he is not alone. With his near-fatal stabbing almost a memory, DI Bob Valentine is settling back into life on the force but he knows nothing will ever be the same. Haunted by unearthly visions that appear like waking dreams, he soon understands he is being inducted into one of Scotland’s darkest secrets.
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The Darkest Goodbye by Alex Gray (17 November 2016). When newly fledged DC Kirsty Wilson is called to the house of an elderly woman, what appears to be a death by natural causes soon takes a sinister turn when it is revealed that the woman had a mysterious visitor in the early hours of that morning - someone dressed as a community nurse, but with much darker intentions. Detective Superintendent William Lorimer is called in to help DC Wilson investigate and as the body count rises, the pair soon realise that this case is about to get very personal.
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Runaway by Peter May (15 January 2015). In 1965, five teenage friends fled Glasgow for London to pursue their dream of musical stardom. Yet before year's end three returned, damaged. In 2015, a brutal murder forces those three men, now in their sixties, to journey back to London and finally confront the dark truth they have run from for five decades. Runaway is a crime novel set against the backdrop of two contrasting cities at two contrasting periods of recent history.
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None but the Dead by Lin Anderson (25 August 2016). Sanday is one of the Orkney Islands. Human remains are discovered to the rear of an old primary school on the island and forensic expert Dr Rhona MacLeod and her assistant arrive to excavate the grave. When the suspicious death of an old man in Glasgow appears to have links with the island, DS Michael McNab is dispatched to investigate. As a major storm approaches, the islanders turn on one another, and past and present evil deeds collide.
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Granite Grit by Lee Cooper (6 September 2016). Family man Joe, thirty two year old, loses the only job he's known since school at a paper mill that supports him, his wife and two kids. Spiralling into debt as continuous job opportunities slip through his hands, he turns to the only thing he knows: boxing. Conned into a brutal, raw fight, he scurries to the Tillydrone boxing gym. Tricked into the ring by his best friend's lies, he loves the rush of victory that he gets, and wants more. And proves he was made for the underground fight game in his first unlicensed bout.
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The Well of the Dead by Clive Allan (28 April 2017). In April 2010, the brutal murders of distillery owner, Duncan Fraser, and his wife Laura, shock the small rural community of Glenruthven in the Scottish Highlands. The ensuing police investigation unearths an ancient clan feud and a mystery dating back to 1746 and the Battle of Culloden. Detective Inspector Neil Strachan finds himself delving into the past, as he and his partner, Sergeant Holly Anderson, go head to head with a ruthless and violent criminal, apparently obsessed with his Jacobite ancestry.
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Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves (6 October 2016). Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage Jimmy Perez finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity.
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Grave Matters at St Blane's by Myra Duffy (30 June 2014). A contract to write a visitor guide for a theme park, planned for Kingarth on the Isle of Bute, proves to be a dangerous assignment for Alison Cameron. There is fierce local opposition to the proposal; the manager has left suddenly and the on-site archaeologists are in no hurry to complete their survey. There is a suspicion that the financier is about to run out of money and then the first body is found.
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Now We Are Dead by Stuart MacBride (3 November 2017). Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace – that’s why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he’s back on the streets and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good. The Powers That Be won’t listen to her. According to them, she’s got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy.
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In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin (4 October 2018). In a house of lies, who can ever know the truth? Everyone has something to hide. A missing private investigator is found, locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case after a decade without answers. Every officer involved must be questioned, and it seems everyone has something to hide. But there is one man who knows where the trail may lead – and that it could be the end of him: John Rebus.
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Cross and Burn by Val McDermid (10 October 2013). Someone is brutally killing women who bear a striking resemblance to former DCI Carol Jordan. Soon psychological profiler Tony Hill finds himself dangerously close to the investigation as the killer is closing in on his next target. As the case becomes ever-more complex Tony and Carol must work together to try and save the victims, and themselves. Tony Hill Book 8.
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Screams in the Dark by Anna Smith (31 January 2013). Steeped in its own problems, Glasgow's mushrooming underclass is simmering with resentment; and one by one, refugees are disappearing. The authorities assume the refugees have vanished into the black economy, until the mutilated body of an Albanian man is fished out of the River Clyde. Rosie Gilmour's instincts tell her there's more to this story than meets the eye.
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Grievous Angel by Quintin Jardine (9 June 2011). Skinner revisits his nightmares. Fifteen years in the past, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Bob Skinner is called to investigate a most brutal death. A man lies at the deep end of an empty swimming pool, his neck broken and almost every other bone in his body shattered. Soon, an organised crime connection looms, and bloody retribution spreads to a second city.
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The Dead Don't Boogie by Douglas Skelton (8 September 2016). A missing teenage girl should be an easy job for Dominic Queste: finding lost souls is what he does best. But sometimes it's better if those souls stay lost. Jenny Deavers is trouble, especially for an ex-cokehead like Queste. Some truly nasty characters are very keen indeed to get to Jenny. As the bodies pile up, Queste has to use all his street smarts both to protect Jenny and to find out just who wants her dead.
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Pray for the Dying by Quintin Jardine (6 June 2013). The killing was an expert hit. Three shots through the head, as the lights dimmed at a celebrity concert in Glasgow. A most public crime, and Edinburgh Chief Constable Bob Skinner is right in the centre of the storm, as it breaks over the Strathclyde force. The shooters are dead too, killed at the scene. But who sent them? The 23rd in the Skinner series, and perhaps the best yet.
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Deacon Brodie: A Double Life by David Hutchison (31 May 2015). When respected Gentleman and City Councillor, Deacon William Brodie, chases his love of gambling, he is drawn deep into a double life. Before long the open respectability of day gives way to a hidden life of crime at night, and soon, Brodie is on a trajectory to disaster — one which leads him to the gibbet. Set in the Edinburgh of 1788, Deacon Brodie: A Double Life is a fact-based novel.
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How a Gunman Says Goodbye by Malcolm Mackay (4 July 2013). How does a gunman retire? Frank MacLeod was the best at what he does. Thoughtful. Efficient. Ruthless. But is he still the best? A new job. A target. But something is about to go horribly wrong. The breathtaking, devastating sequel to lauded debut novel The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, and winner of the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year.
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Dying Light by Stuart MacBride (2 January 2007). The second in the excellent DS logan Macrae series of crime thrillers set in Aberdeen. It's summertime in the Granite city: the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and people are dying. It starts with Rosie Williams, a prostitute, stripped naked and beaten to death down by the docks, the heart of Aberdeen's red light district.
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Coffin Road by Peter May (14 January 2016). A man is washed up on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris. The only clue to his identity is a map tracing a track called the Coffin Road. A detective crosses rough Atlantic seas to a remote rock twenty miles west of the Outer Hebrides. With a sense of foreboding he steps ashore where three lighthouse keepers disappeared more than a century before. A teenage girl lies in her Edinburgh bedroom, desperate to discover the truth about her father's death.
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Blind Eye by Stuart MacBride (7 January 2010). The fifth in the excellent DS logan Macrae series of crime thrillers set in Aberdeen. Aberdeen's growing Polish community is under attack from a serial offender who leaves mutilated victims to be discovered on building sites. With the victims too scared to talk, the investigation is going nowhere fast.
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The Inglorious Dead by Tony Black (29 May 2014). This is the new Doug Michie crime novel by Tony Black, the acclaimed Scottish writer. Full of intrigue, lies, secrets, and illicit sexual encounters, this is a must-read for all fans of crime noir. The first Doug Michie crime novel is the excellent award-winning The Storm Without published by McNidder & Grace.
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Last Resort by Quintin Jardine (9 April 2015). The twenty-fifth novel in Quintin Jardine's ever-popular Bob Skinner series, which sees the Edinburgh cop back as never before.. After thirty years of service, former Chief Constable Bob Skinner faces the possible end of his police career. A quiet trip to Catalunya to contemplate his future takes on a different flavour when he is asked to track down a missing man
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Young Bond: SilverFin by Charlie Higson (5 May 2011). Before the name became a legend. Before the legend became a man. Meet Bond. James Bond. The first explosive adventure in the Young Bond series, in a special edition with all new material and a fantastic redesigned cover. A great read and an atmospheric Scottish location set in the 1930s.
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Beyond the Rage by Michael J Malone (12 February 2015). Glasgow villain Kenny O'Neill is angry. Not only has his high-class prostitute girlfriend just been attacked, but his father is reaching out to him from the past despite abandoning Kenny as a child after his mother's suicide. Kenny is now on a dual mission to hunt down his girl's attacker and find out the truth about his father, but instead he unravels disturbing family secrets.
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Runaway by Claire MacLeary (14 March 2019). When Aberdeen housewife Debbie Milne abruptly vanishes, her husband is frantic with worry and turns to local PIs Maggie Laird and Big Wilma Harcus. Maggie is reluctant to take on a misper case, but Wilma cajoles her into a covert operation trawling women's refuges and homeless squats in search of a lead. But when a woman's body is discovered in a skip, the unlikely investigators are dragged into a deeper mystery involving people-trafficking, gambling and prostitution and they're in deadly danger.
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Stitch Up by William McIntyre (16 August 2018). Everything is good for Robbie Munro, newly married and living in the country with wife and child. Until his wife takes up employment abroad just as old flame, Jill Green, asks him to investigate the unexplained death of her partner. Another killer on the loose is child-murderer Ricky Hertz, whose twenty-year-old conviction is under scrutiny. Did Robbie's father fabricate evidence at the trial? The only way to prove ex-Police Sergeant Alex Munro, is innocencent is for Robbie to show there was no miscarriage of justice.
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The Storm Without by Tony Black (5 July 2012). Still recovering from the harrowing case that ended his police career, Doug Michie returns to his boyhood home of Ayr. He hopes to rebuild his shattered life, get over the recent failure of his marriage and shed his demons, but the years have changed the birthplace of the poet Robert Burns. And an old flame's son has been accused of murder and she begs Doug to find the truth.
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Crash Land by Doug Johnstone (3 November 2016). Sitting in the departure lounge of Kirkwall Airport, Finn Sullivan just wants to get off Orkney. But then he meets the mysterious and dangerous Maddie Pierce, stepping in to save her from some unwanted attention, and his life is changed forever. Set against the brutal, unforgiving landscape of Orkney, Crash Land is a psychological thriller steeped in guilt, shame, lust, deception and murder.
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The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne by Andrew Nicoll (17 July 2015). A woman murdered. A crime unsolved. A mystery that has lasted a century. A hundred years ago, the true story of the brutal murder of Miss Jean Milne in a small seaside town captured the imagination of the whole country. A wealthy spinster who lived alone in a crumbling mansion, Miss Milne appeared to be the very model of respectability.
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A Taste of Ashes by Tony Black (24 September 2015). When DI Bob Valentine returns to duty after a narrow escape with death, he is faced with the discovery of a corpse with a horrific neck wound and a mystery surrounding the victim's missing partner and her daughter. When the murder investigation begins to reveal a tragic family drama, Bob Valentine struggles to deal with the rapidly unfolding events and the terrifying visions that haunt him.
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The Missing and the Dead by Stuart MacBride (15 January 2015). Logan McRae, Book 9. When you catch a twisted killer there should be a reward, right? What Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae gets instead is a ‘development opportunity’ out in the depths of rural Aberdeenshire. Then a little girl’s body washes up just outside Banff, kicking off a massive manhunt. The Major Investigation Team is up from Aberdeen, wanting answers...
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Hour Of Darkness by Quintin Jardine (8 May 2014). The 24th Bob Skinner novel sees the Chief Constable faced with a case that calls every part of his life into question. The body of a murdered woman is found washed up on Cramond Island near the mouth of the River Forth. Days later detectives are called to a flat in Edinburgh; the kitchen is covered in blood. When the name of the woman from Cramond Island is revealed, it stirs unwelcome memories.
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Names of the Dead by Mark Leggatt (26 July 2015). Connor Montrose is running for his life. All that he held dear has been ripped away. Every Western intelligence agency and all the police forces of Europe are looking for him, with orders to shoot on sight. The only man who can prove his innocence, is the man that most wants him dead. Only one woman, a Mossad sleeper in Paris, will stand by his side.
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Payback by Claire MacLeary (23 April 2020). When police are called to a murder at the home of Aberdeen socialite Annabel Imray, they come under pressure to get a conviction, and fast. Meanwhile, local PIs Wilma Harcus and Maggie Laird are at rock bottom, desperate for income. Maggie contemplates replacing Wilma with an unpaid intern and the fear caused by a series of sinister break-ins escalates. Maggie blames the aggressive language in public discourse for inciting violent crime. But before long, she finds she is in danger herself. Will Wilma manage to save her?
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The Pheasant Plucker by Bill Daly (15 July 2013). Once you've got your tongue round the not-to-be-Spoonerised title (no point in alarming your granny when she asks what's that book you can't put down) you'll find this thriller is a superb read - pacy, witty, sophisticated and for good measure pretty informative about the south of France and the city of Montpellier, where most of it is set. Unlikely, improbable, but who's caring?
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Murder on the Moor by C.S. Challinor (12 May 2011). When Rex Graves holds a housewarming party in the Scottish Highlands, he doesn't anticipate the arrival of an old flame, much less a dead body or serial killer. Rex's houseguest and colleague Alistair, recently tried to convict a man for the notorious Moor Murders, and Rex now finds himself wondering of the crimes are connected.
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Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre (9 March 2017). Diana Jager has taken some hard knocks to pursue her career as a surgeon. Then she meets Peter in Inverness. He's the second chance she's been waiting for. Within six months, they are married. But Peter becomes ever more secretive about his work and his past and within six more months the marriage has failed and Peter is dead in a road accident: but was it an accident? Peter's sister Lucy thinks it was much more, and asks Jack Parlaban to investigate.
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Endgame at Port Bannatyne by Myra Duffy (23 August 2013). When she's offered a job on the Isle of Bute as an assistant scriptwriter on a film, Alison Cameron seizes the opportunity for a change of career. It isn't long before she has cause to regret her decision as a suspicious death and then an on-set accident throw the production into disarray. Someone wants to make sure the film isn't successful.
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His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (5 November 2015). A brutal triple murder in a remote northwestern crofting community in 1869 leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. There's no question that Macrae is guilty, but the police and courts must uncover what drove him to murder the local village constable. And who were the other two victims? Ultimately, Macrae's fate hinges on one key question: is he insane?
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Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride (27 October 2011). It’s DS Logan McRae’s first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn’t get much worse. Four-year-old David Reid’s body is discovered in a ditch, strangled, mutilated and a long time dead. And he’s only the first. There’s a serial killer stalking the Granite City and the local media are baying for blood. A reissue of the first Logan McRae book.
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Entry Island by Peter May (26 December 2013). When Detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft in Montreal, he does so without looking back. For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead is an opportunity to escape the loneliness and regret that has come to characterise his life in the city. But then a murder investigation becomes complicated by dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away.
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Where the Dead Men Go by Liam McIlvanney (2 October 2014). The second book in the Conway Trilogy. After three years in the wilderness, hardboiled reporter Gerry Conway is back at his desk at the Glasgow Tribune. But three years is a long time on newspapers and things have changed. But when a colleage's body turns up in a flooded quarry, Conway is drawn deep into the city's criminal underworld in an effort to discover the truth about his death.
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Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Jacobite Rose by Fiona-Jane Brown (21 May 2012). Mycroft has a missing agent; the stepdaughter of Lord Wexford Foyle wants a pearl brooch authenticated. Sherlock Holmes has little interest in either until he learns the gem is the Jacobite Rose, a royal treasure. Then three strange clues begin to link the two cases.
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Sewing the Shadows Together by Alison Baillie (7 August 2015). More than 30 years after 13-year-old Shona McIver was raped and murdered in Portobello, the seaside suburb of Edinburgh, the crime still casts a shadow over the lives of her brother Tom and her best friend Sarah. When modern DNA evidence shows that the wrong man was convicted of the crime, the case is reopened. So who did kill Shona?
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Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride (2 January 2008). The third in the excellent DS logan Macrae series of crime thrillers set in Aberdeen. In the pale grey light of a chilly February, Aberdeen is not at its best. There's a rapist prowling the city's cold granite streets, leaving a string of tortured women behind. And DS Logan McRae's girlfriend is out acting as bait.
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Black Mail by Bill Daly (17 April 2014). Murder and drug-dealing are all in the day's work for DCI Charlie Anderson, but everything's on a different scale now that psychopath Billy McAteer is back on the streets of Glasgow. Meanwhile, Simon Ramsay, a seemingly respectable businessman, receives a photograph threatening to expose embarrassing aspects of his private life if he doesn't come up with fifty thousand pounds.
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The Longest Shadow by R. J. Mitchell (20 November 2013). In the third instalment of RJ Mitchell's gritty Glaswegian crime thriller series, Detective Sergeant Thoroughgood finds himself in pursuit of a suspect he believes is the psychopathic leader of a vicious gang wanted for murder and abduction. The streets of Glasgow's West End and city centre are the location for a high octane pursuit.
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Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin (8 November 2012). It's twenty-five years since John Rebus appeared on the scene, and five years since he retired. But not only is Rebus as stubborn and anarchic as ever, but he finds himself in trouble with Rankin's more recent creation, Malcolm Fox of Edinburgh's Ethics and Standards Unit. Added to which, Rebus may be about to derail the career of his ex-colleague Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke.
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California by Ray Banks (1 March 2011). Shuggie Boyle is a changed man. Which is why after serving four years for armed robbery, he’s skipped his licence. He is heading back to his ex-girlfriend’s house to retrieve the stash from the robbery. Happiness is only a few thousand miles away, that journey from California (in Falkirk) to California (in America).
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Gathering Storm by Maggie Craig (31 October 2013). Edinburgh, Yuletide 1743, and Redcoat officer Robert Catto would rather be anywhere else on earth than Scotland. Seconded back from the wars in Europe to captain the city's Town Guard, he fears his covert mission to assess the strength of the Jacobite threat will force him to confront the past he tries so hard to forget. An outstandingly good read.
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Thin Air by Ann Cleeves 11 September 2014). Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series, now produced as a TV series. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears, apparently into thin air.
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Even Dogs in the Wild: The New John Rebus by Ian Rankin (5 November 2015). Retirement doesn't suit John Rebus. Being a cop is in his blood. So when DI Siobhan Clarke asks for his help on a case, Rebus doesn't need long to consider his options. Clarke's been investigating the death of a senior lawyer whose body was found along with a threatening note. On the other side of Edinburgh, Big Ger Cafferty, Rebus's long-time nemesis, is also threatened.
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The Darkest Walk by Malcolm Archibald (30 July 2011). Set in 1848, Darkest Walk of Crime sees recently promoted Detective Mendick sent on his first case. Disturbing new evidence suggests the working class Chartist movement is seeking violent action after years of oppression. With the spectre of civil war looming, Mendick goes undercover.
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The Good Son by Russel D. McLean (16 October 2008). James Robertson, a local farmer, finds his estranged brother’s corpse hanging from a tree. The police claim suicide. But Dundonian private investigator J. McNee is about to uncover the disturbing truth behind the death. With a pair of vicious London hard men loose, it’s only a matter of time before people start dying. The first J McNee novel.
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Birthdays for the Dead by Stuart MacBride (5 January 2012). The gritty new standalone crime novel from the author of the DS Logan Macrae series, set in the fictional Scottish city of Oldcastle. Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a personal reason for wanting to catch te killer of 13 year old girls the tabloids are calling "The Birthday Boy".
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Cutting Edge by Bill Daly (5 April 2016). The third in the DCI Charlie Anderson series sees the veteran Glasgow copper face his most gruelling case yet. A serial killer seems to be roving the city, targeting a range of victims from an elderly traveller to a young female accountant and a heroine-addicted mercenary. In each case the left hand is hacked off and sent to Charlie, along with a playing card. And then Charlie's own family is targeted by the killer.
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Cold Grave by Craig Robertson (20 December 2012). A murder investigation frozen in time is beginning to melt. November 1993. Scotland is in the grip of an ice-cold winter and the Lake of Menteith is frozen over. A young man and woman walk across the ice to the island of Inchmahome. Only the man returns. In the spring the body of a girl is found. Retired detective Alan Narey is still haunted by the unsolved crime.
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The Storm by Neil Broadfoot (7 May 2015). After his editor is murdered in front of him, crime reporter Doug McGregor's world falls apart. As prime witness, he's not allowed to investigate the case, and he's left only with questions and a bloody memory. So he leaps at the chance to take some time out on the Isle of Skye. But when another savage killing occurs, Doug realises that the murders may be linked.
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Funeral Note by Quintin Jardine (24 May 2012). Skinner 22. After a tip-off, a man's body is exhumed from a shallow grave in Edinburgh. Murder surely, yet he died from natural causes, so, case closed? Indeed was there ever a case? But Chief Constable Skinner and his people keep on digging. Who was the man, why was he buried so reverentially, and by whom?
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The King's Park Irregulars: An Abigail Craig Mystery by David Wilson (1 April 2012). When Abigail Craig's friend, retired solicitor Alasdair Mills, is burgled and his prized possession, a pair of slippers that once belonged to Sir Walter Scott, is stolen, her life changes forever. The police have no leads so Alasdair convinces Abigail that they should do some investigating to track down the thieves themselves.
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Unsafe Acts by Bill Kirton (17 September 2012). An offshore platform in the North Sea is a dangerous place. For Ally Baxter, a safety officer on Falcon Alpha, it is particularly so. When his workmates decide he's gay, an evening ashore turns ugly and later his body is found. For DCI Jack Carston, the case seems simple enough until a second murder is discovered, this time it's the prostitute Ally always visited.
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Naming the Bones by Louise Welsh (3 February 2011). Some secrets are best left buried ...Knee-deep in the mud of an ancient burial ground, a winter storm raging around him, and at least one person intent on his death: how did Murray Watson end up here? His quiet life in university libraries researching the lives of writers seems a world away.
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A Shot of Snuff by Cary Smith (28 June 2012). Gavin Madden, a young ex-City banker, arrives on the Isle of Stone in 2010, charged by the British government with an unusual task: to find out if it would be possible to transform a small, remote Scottish island into an important recovery centre for injured war veterans and other disabled people, and a training centre for paralympics. But it's not as simple as that...
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The Loner by Quintin Jardine (4 August 2011). Xavier Aislado is a gentle giant, half Spanish, half Scot, brought up in Edinburgh by his grandmother. His emergence into manhood is colourful, and eventful. After a short career as a professional footballer, he turns to journalism, and has a bloody introduction to the trade, as his first assignment ends in violent death.
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Killing Mum by Allan Guthrie (1 June 2009). Edinburgh-based Carlos Morales runs an operation that arranges contract killings. Slight snag: his hit man’s in jail and won’t be out for a while. So when an anonymous payment arrives on account, Carlos decides to take the job on himself. But this is no longer business, it’s personal, because the ‘mark’ is his mother…
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Ghosts of the Vikings by Marsali Taylor (8 December 2016). Treasure hunters and opera stars collide in the north of Shetland in this latest of the Cass Lynch mysteries. Cass has embarked on a tentative relationship with DI Gavin Macrae and they are both invited to the gala opening of her mother's new opera. The performance goes well but it is soon clear that things are not as smooth backstage. As the wind rises, and the power goes off, even Cass's much-loved yacht Khalida can't provide a refuge from a ruthless killer.
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Lawless by Alexander McGregor (19 March 2014). Journalist Campbell McBride's first crime book, is a success but now it's attracting some unwanted attention. McBride's going to have to return to what, when he wrote about it, seemed like a straightforward murder case, a woman strangled by her boyfriend. Or somebody he cares about might be at risk.
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Picture Her Dead by Lin Anderson (4 August 2011). When art student Jude Evans vanishes on a photographic visit to a derelict Glasgow cinema, her friend Liam enlists the help of forensic scientist Dr Rhona MacLeod in his search for her. Visiting other cinemas on her list, they find clues to her disappearance and to the horrifying secret she may have discovered behind those walls.
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The Balmoral Incident by Alanna Knight (23 October 2014). Rose McQuinn is invited to stay in a small cottage on the Balmoral Estate. Rose wonders what exciting adventures await them at the Royal household. Little does she realise that within just 48 hours of their arrival, death will have visited the great castle. Can Rose find out what happened and prevent any more bloodshed?
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The Lost Sister by Russel D. McLean (9 September 2009). A teenage girl is missing in Scotland's fourth city. Her uncle is a known criminal and her mother is hiding a dark secret. For Private investigator J McNee, what starts as a avour for a friend soon becomes a nightmare as he reaces to find Mary Furst before it's too late. The second book starring J McNee by Russel D McLean and another slab of Scottish noir at its best.
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Quest for a Killer (Rose McQuinn Mysteries) by Alanna Knight (1 November 2010). When the circus arrives in Edinburgh, Rose McQuinn is delighted. However, the much anticipated festivities are overshadowed by a curious set of crimes, involving the murder of a clerk during a bank robbery and, within hours of each other, the identical suicides of two young women.
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Artefacts of the Dead by Tony Black (14 July 2014). The discovery of a dead banker sends shock waves through the sleepy coastal town of Ayr. And it s up to DI Bob Valentine, recently back on the force after his near-fatal stabbing, to find the killer. But leads are hard to find and the pressure is on from an anxious Chief Superintendent. And then it becomes clear that there's a serial killer on the loose.
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Dark Blood by Stuart MacBride (2 March 2007). The sixth in the excellent DS Logan Macrae series of crime thrillers set in Aberdeen. Richard Knox has served his time, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to live anywhere? Yes, in the past he was a violent rapist, but he’s seen the error of his ways. Wants to leave his dark past behind him and make a new start. Or so he says.
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A Taste for Malice by Michael J. Malone (6 June 2013). DI Ray McBain is back at work and on filing duty. A pair of old files intrigue him. In the first a woman pushes her way into a vulnerable family. Then she disappears. Meanwhile, in Ayrshire, another young family is relieved when a stranger comes into their lives to help them out. McBain makes the link, but nobody is interested in what he has to say.
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Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina (5 July 2012). A Glasgow post office. A masked gunman wields an AK47 while a grandfather calmly volunteers to help the robber gather the money. Then the old man stands passively, hands by his sides, while the gunman raises the barrel and shoots him. Recently returned to work after the birth of her twins, DS Alex Morrow is called in to head the investigation.
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Evil for Evil by Aline Templeton (26 November 2012). In a sea-cave on Lovatt Island, just off the west coast of Scotland, a skeleton, assumed to be historic, is found shackled to the rocks. Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming, called in to investigate, and when a modern watch is discovered on the skeleton's wrist, realises the crime may be far closer to home than she initially assumed.
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Shatter the Bones by Stuart MacBride (6 January 2011). The new Logan McRae thriller set in Aberdeen. "You will raise money for the safe return of Alison and Jenny McGregor. If you raise enough money within fourteen days they will be released. If not, Jenny will be killed." An air of gritty realism characterises this excellent novel.
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Gauntlet of Fear by David Cargill (1 December 2012). When Professor Giles Dawson, historian of magic and the great illusionists, visits the Circus Tropicana, wintering at a former RAF airfield in Devon, he is not there to be entertained. He is there at the request of the circus boss, who has experienced a series of disasters at the circus, which appear to be the work of someone trying to force him to give up the circus he loves.
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The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories by Ian Rankin (9 October 2014). There is no detective like DI Rebus. Brilliant, irascible and endlessly frustrating to both his friends and his long-suffering bosses, he has made the dark places of Edinburgh his home for over two decades. The Beat Goes On combines much-loved classics with previously unpublished gems from other media, plus two brand-new stories.
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The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Murder at Sorrow's Crown by Steven Savile and Robert Greenberger (13 September 2016). A frantic mother comes to Sherlock Holmes, begging him to find her son, a navy officer who has not returned from the war in South Africa. He has been labeled a deserter, yet she is sure he would never abandon his men. Holmes and Watson begin their own inquiries, but encounter resistance from the establishment, and an attempt is made on Holmes's life.
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The Devil's Recruit by S.G. MacLean (14 March 2013). 1635, and Europe is in the grip of the brutal territorial and religious struggle of the Thirty Years' War. Fear stalks the town of Aberdeen as a ship recruiting for the wars lies at anchor in the river mouth. Apprehension grows and culminates in the disappearance of the son of a Highland chief. The fourth in the excellent Alexander Seaton series.
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The Chessmen by Peter May (3 January 2013). Fin Macleod is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on Lewis. This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill - a local poache. But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future.
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All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye (Paperback) by Christopher Brookmyre (20 April 2006). As a teenager Jane Fleming from East Kilbride had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond. But in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant.
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Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Edinburgh Haunting by David Wilson (17 October 2012). When John Watson is invited to Edinburgh to visit his cousin, he convinces Holmes to accompany him. On arrival, what begins as a chance encounter of a seemingly simple mystery at an Edinburgh home, soon takes Holmes and Watson in to conflict with the Edinburgh Police, an investigation involving murder and corruption.
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Crucible of Secrets by Shona MacLean (4 August 2011). It is Midsummer, 1631. While Alexander Seaton and his fellow masters enjoy the holiday with their students, Robert Sim, librarian of Aberdeen's Marischal College, is murdered. While the town authorities investigate the murder, Seaton is asked by the college principal to look into Sim's private life to try to find a motive for his killing.
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The Seal King Murders (Inspector Faro) by Alanna Knight (10 January 2011). The year is 1861 and Constable Faro is heading back to Orkney to enjoy some home comforts, armed with a private investigation into the death of an ex-colleague's relative, champion swimmer Dave Claydon, drowned in mysterious circumstances.
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The Naming Of The Dead (Hardcover) by Ian Rankin (18 Oct 2006). The 16th Inspector Rebus novel. It is July 2005, and the G8 leaders have gathered in Scotland. With daily marches, demonstrations, and scuffles, the police are at full stretch. Detective Inspector John Rebus, however, has been sidelined.
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Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin (7 November 2013). When a young woman is found unconscious at the wheel of her car, evidence at the scene suggests this was no ordinary crash. Especially when it turns out her boyfriend is the son of the Scottish Justice Minister and neither of them is willing to talk to the police. Meanwhile, John Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion. An outstanding read.
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Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses by Catriona McPherson (5 July 2012). Before she was a detective, before she was a reluctant wife and distracted mother, Dandy Gilver spent one perfect summer with the Lipscotts of Pereford. The golden memories of it have sustained her through many a cold snap in Perthshire. So when two of the Lipscott sisters beg her to help the third, she can hardly refuse.
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The Complaints (Hardcover) by Ian Rankin (3 Sep 2009) Ian Rankin's second book of the post-Rebus era is The Complaints, in our view his best book to date. We are back in the setting of Edinburgh and within the Lothian and Borders Police. But Inspector Malcolm Fox is not your ordinary detective.
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Testament of a Witch by Douglas Watt (8 April 2011). Set in the 17th century against the backdrop of political and religious conflict, the second of Watt's John MacKenzie series is as historically rich and gripping as the last. MacKenzie investigates the murder of a woman accused of witchcraft and he must act quickly when the same accusations are made against the woman's daughter.
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Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris (1 August 2013). The third instalment in the Douglas Brodie series. As Glasgow is buried under snow, a killer is on the loose and a deadly secret threatens to take Brodie, an ex-policeman turned journalist, to the edge of sanity. It's 1947 and the worst winter in memory: Glasgow is buried in snow, killers stalk the streets, and Douglas Brodie's past is engulfing him.
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Flesh House by Stuart MacBride (5 January 2009). The fourth in the excellent DS logan Macrae series of crime thrillers set in Aberdeen. Aberdeen is panicking. It's been eighteen years since Grampian Police caught the Flesher, the notorious serial killer who butchered people all over the UK, but he's been released and human meant is turning up...
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Double Mortice by Bill Daly (21 April 2015). Rich, successful and married, with a beautiful mistress, top Glasgow lawyer Michael Gibson is to all appearances an enviable man. On the inside, his life is falling apart. When Gibson's wife goes missing, DCI Charlie Anderson has to establish if he's dealing with a case of abduction, suicide or murder. As events unfold against the background of modern Glasgow, Anderson finds his skills seriously challenged.
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Sleep Like the Dead by Alex Gray (3 February 2011). Everyone is searching for Billy Brogan and his sister, Marianne. Marianne's ex-husband Kenneth Scott is gunned down by a hit man in his home and two men are found dead in Billy's West End flat. But Billy is on the run to Spain. Now the hit man remains in Glasgow, seeking the elusive Marianne.
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The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (13 October 2011). Malcolm Fox and his team are back in this excellent read. They've been sent to Fife to investigate whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague. But what should be a simple job is soon complicated by intimations of conspiracy, an unexplained death, and links to another death and terrorist groups in the 1980s.
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Matt Helm: The Devastators by Donald Hamilton (25 April 2014). The CIA's answer to James Bond, though perhaps with less subtelty and fewer moral scruples, Matt Helm featured in a series of hugely popular books. This one, originally published in 1965, could have been subtitled "Matt Helm comes to Scotland (and kills people)". It's a great read that shows evidence of genuine research by the author about the Highlands at the time.
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Gun by Ray Banks (1 November 2008). Richie, a man fresh out on licence and desperate for money to support his new family, agrees to pick up a converted air pistol for local drug dealer Goose. When Richie is beaten up and robbed, he's forced to retrieve the gun, as well as question his career choice. Ray Banks is the author of four previous crime novels.
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The Blackhouse by Peter May (3 February 2011). The Isle of Lewis is the most remote place in Scotland, where the difficulty of existence seems outweighed only by people's fear of God. But older, pagan values lurk beneath the veneer of faith. When a brutal murder on the island bears the hallmarks of a similar slaying in Edinburgh, Detective Inspector Fin Macleod is dispatched to investigate.
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Blood Tears by Michael J. Malone (6 June 2012). A body is discovered: the terrible mutilations spell out the wounds of the Stigmata. For Glasgow DI Ray McBain, the killings are strangely familiar... and then the dreams begin. The first in a series of books featuring DI Ray McBain, a Glasgow detective who has too many friends in the underworld for his own good, but enough to support him when he goes on the run, the main suspect in a murder case.
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Father Confessor by Russel D. McLean (1 September 2012). DC Ernie Bright is dead. A good cop gone bad? Not everyone believes that one of Tayside Constabulary's longest serving detectives was leading a double life. One of those looking to vindicate the dead copper is Bright's protege, private investigator J McNee, who has his own reasons for trying to prove Bright's innocence.
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