Dying Light

For my money, Stuart MacBride is the best crime author writing today, better than Connelly, Lescroat and all the rest. This, only his second book, is a masterpiece. His characters are very human and very unique. MacBride does not shrink from placing them in fascinating situations and his iconic character, Detective Sgt. Logan McCrae is the best detective in police procedurals today. And you'll meet Inspector Steel, a force of nature who can hurl epithets better than anyone else in fiction; her rival, Inspector Insch, who is a walking atom bomb; and others. MacBride's plot is complicated and twisty, but he never loses control of it. Also, he does not rely on blatant coincidences to move the plot forward, like many other writers do. The best part of all this is that MacBride is only starting out in his writing career. We will have many more compelling, riveting books to look forward to.

My mom was living in Aberdeen for 5 years and I've visited many of the places Mr. MacBride writes so vividly about. I love the mixture of horrific scenes and laugh out loud humor. I look forward to the next book in this series.

Detective Sargeant Logan McRae had been a golden boy, hero. Now, he is assigned to the "screw-up squad" reporting to Inspector Steele, known as "the Jinx," after a raid leaves a fellow officer in a vegetative coma. The team is looking for a killer; someone who is stripping and beating prostitutes to death. They are also looking for an arsonist who screws shut the doors and windows from the outside before burning down buildings--with the people inside. I rated MacBride's first book as Very Good, but didn't feel this was quite up to the same level. There seemed to be a strong assumption that readers would have read the first book and, therefore, knew the characters and their history, so individual character development in this book was very thin. I did feel the characters where realistic although not particularly likable. But MacBride's writing is very strong. It is graphically brutal balanced with the type of humor I, again, felt realistic to the characters and situations. I do like MacBride's use dialogue and ability to create sense of place. I shall definitely give MacBride another try.

Just a few months ago in Aberdeen, Scotland n the Grampian Police Department, Detective Sergeant Logan MacRae was considered a superstar by the media and his peers until a failed raid left a peer dead and "Mr. Police Bloody Hero" reassessed as a screw-up. He now works for a DI called the "Jinx" because his career has ended on the reject squad. Logan enjoys some night time with WPC Watson when a nearby murder occurs. Cops at the scene decide they need adult supervision officially known as an officer in charge; Logan is the only one available so they interrupt his tryst. At the crime scene he recognizes the battered naked corpse of prostitute Rosie Williams. Though he expects working for the "Jinx" to lead to his firing, Logan begins inquiries into who murdered the prostitute, a case no one else wants. Across town an arson and multiple homicide case has the entire department wanting to be the media darling by solving it. There are six dead inside with windows and doors bolted shut from the outside and petrol everywhere. Soon Logan will see links between the cases and the murder of another hooker, but the leadership thinks he is just a reject seeking glory hound. In his second Scottish police procedural (see COLD GRANITE), Logan sees the prostitute investigation as a chance to salvage his career in spite of working for the unorthodox Jinx and the knowledge that everyone else sees the arson as the flavor of the moment. The secondary cast is solid as they bring the best and worst of human nature to the forefront while Aberdeen comes across as a gritty rough urban center. Still this is Logan's run as his "altruistic" motive is not justice for a deceased "lowlife", but redemption by the brass. Harriet Klausner