Product Description

The latest Logan McRae novel from the rising star of crime
fiction, following the huge successes of `Cold Granite' and `Dying Light'.
Scottish crime fiction in the vein of Ian Rankin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85080 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Reginald Hill
`If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident,
strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then
look no further'

Mark Billingham
`Fierce, unflinching and shot through with the blackest of humour; this is
crime fiction of the highest order by a writer whose dark star is most
definitely on the rise.'

Synopsis
A new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of 'Cold Granite' and 'Dying Light', set in gritty 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. But while DS Logan McRae's girlfriend is out acting as bait, he's dealing with the blood-drenched body of an unidentified male, dumped outside Accident and Emergency. When a stash of explicit films turn up, all featuring the victim, it looks as if someone in the local bondage community has developed a taste for violent death, and Logan gets dragged into the twilight world of pornographers, sex-shops and S&M. To make matters worse, when they finally arrest the Granite City Rapist, Grampian Police are forced by the courts to let him go: Aberdeen Football Club's star striker has an alibi for every attack. Could they really have got it so badly wrong? Logan thinks so, but the trick will be getting anyone to listen before the real rapist strikes again.

Especially as his girlfriend, PC Jackie 'Ball Breaker' Watson, is convinced the footballer is guilty and she's hell-bent on a conviction at any cost...

Customer Reviews

What rubbish!
One can only hope the Aberdeen police either don't read this appalling novel or have a long fuse coupled with a thick skin. The Police, whether it be constables or senior officers are portrayed as incompetent and deeply unlikeable, incapable of speech unless larded with foul language. What passes as a plot is tedious and wholly unconvincing. All combining as a book to avoid at all costs.

Logan's Run - out of ideas
I bought Macbride's first two novels and gave them glowing reviews. This time around, however, I have definitely been disappointed, and found it a real effort to read through to the end. Not far short of 600 pages it was way too long and I did not at any time feel the inclination to read 'just one more chapter' before turning out the light, as I usually do. Having finished a Michael Connelly novel prior to this, I found BROKEN SKIN to be weak in just about every department of crime series fiction. I am tiring, for example, of the author's style of mixing the narrative with the conversation, so that all the expletives and crudities of language appear at all times; there is no division. I assume that was entirely deliberate but I just don't like it any more, it was a novelty in COLD GRANITE but that has now worn off and I am sure he should have written it in the first-person, as front man Logan McRae appears on every single page.

Then there are the characters. McRae gets more spineless with each episode, and in this third outing he spends most of his time trying to avoid confrontation with either of the two DIs he works with, or the woman and police colleague he lives with. A huge slice of the writing is allocated to police procedure but frankly there's very little of any novelty, or any interest to be honest. McRae himself has few vices, if any, and is really not that interesting a personality. The vaguely cartoonish characterisations of DI Insch and DI Steel have not been moved on at all from either of the two preceding novels, and I really grew more than tired of the writer's repeated descriptions of Insch's weight or size, and of Steel's smoking habits. The author's prose is often childish, such as when he writes: "The door burst open: DI Insch, looking very, very angry, his face swollen and red."

My biggest gripe though is Macbride's adoption of a generally lightweight script spattered with countless attempts to generate humour - rarely paying off - while the underlying themes of the crimes (rape and buggery) being investigated are unquestionably dark, unpleasant and impossible to make humourous. I am definitely no prude, but I found the emphasis on the world of sexual sadomasochism distasteful and not funny at any point, despite the writer's efforts to make it so. I have no objection to pockets of humour in violent crime novels, but Macbride lacks the skills in this department of John Connolly by way of example, and his efforts to shock or thrill fall completely flat, in my humble opinion, whereas writers such as Val McDermid have been consistently successful in this regard. As for Logan McRae, well I can think of several front characters from other crime fiction novelists who are a whole lot more interesting.

BETTER THAN EVER.............................................
MacBride can not get better than this.
I would strongly advise if you have not sampled the series that you start with the first and read on.
Herein we have the same old characters in all their glory. DI Steele excels better than ever before. DI Insch grumbles and chews his way through 600 pages.
There are numerous plots which twist and turn, but the humour is over the top. MacBride is Rebus and Terry Pratchett all in one. He takes serious topics and with outstanding, realistic characters and more than its fair share of laughter, makes a thoroughly readable book which is impossible to put down.
Seriously looking forward to number 4 in the series.
Keep them coming Mr MacBride before I start to go through withdrawal.