Product Description

A new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of Cold Granite, Dying Light and Broken Skin, set in gritty 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 -- and seven years since he was released from Peterhead prison, his conviction overturned on appeal. But when a container full of joints of human meat turns up at Aberdeen Harbour, it kicks off the largest man hunt in Aberdeen's history. Ken Wiseman is on the run and looking for revenge. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is lumbered with the unenviable task of babysitting Chief Constable Mark Faulds from Birmingham -- one of the original investigation team -- and trying to keep DI Insch from throwing his career away in his obsessive quest to see Wiseman behind bars before he kills again. When members of the team that put Wiseman away in 1990 start going missing, Logan knows that things aren't as straightforward as everyone thinks. More and more human meat is turning up in the food chain. Twenty years of secrets and lies are being dragged into the light.And the only thing that's certain is Aberdeen will never be the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3815 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Those who like their crime thrillers diamond hard (but shot through with macabre humour) need look no further than Stuart MacBride. As Flesh House, his latest, once again proves, he has few equals in this area, and is more than worthy of the ever-growing legion of admirers he is gleaning. His tough protagonist, Logan McRae, is once again negotiating the mean streets of Aberdeen, with violence and threat forever at his elbow. Those who have read Cold Granite, Dying Light and Broken Skin will know what to expect here -- and they’ll be aware that they're not in for a comfortable ride.

The city is in a state of fear. Some 20 years ago, the Grampian police nailed a particularly vicious serial killer known as The Flesher, a monster who had claimed victims throughout the country. But one of those frequent legal appeals which so often release dangerous criminals into the community has freed him, and when a container with human body parts appears at Aberdeen harbour, it looks like the stage is once again set for carnage on a massive scale. DS Logan McRae (along with his less experienced colleague, Chief Constable Mark Faulds from Birmingham -- who was on the original team tracking down The Flesher), finds himself in charge of one of the most ambitious manhunts city has ever seen. And then members of the original team tracking down their serial killer prey (whose real name is Ken Wiseman) begin to disappear -- and more human meat is making grisly appearances. All of this is delivered with the requisite grasp of tension and characterisation that we have come to expect from Stuart MacBride. There are those who will feel he has gone too far in Flesh House in confronting the less savoury aspects of human behaviour, but fans of uncompromising crime writing will be in their element. --Barry Forshaw

Review
'Stuart MacBride is the most exciting thing to happen in British crime fiction in the last ten years. Flesh House is his fourth book and the best yet' Northern Echo 'A gripping story, lashings of black humour and a hugely likeable hero' Aberdeen Press and Journal Praise for Stuart MacBride: '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' Mark Billingham 'If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident, strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then look no further' Reginald Hill 'Ferocious and funny' Val McDermid 'The novel rattles along like a bolting horse and the dialogue crackles like a firework display ! DI Steel should be declared a national treasure' Andrew Taylor, Spectator 'This intelligent, exciting police procedural should make the leading writers of the genre start looking over their shoulders' Sunday Telegraph 'Grim, gritty and great fun' Daily Sport 'Riveting and gruesome' Telegraph 'Stuart MacBride goes straight for the jugular with a tight, thrilling novel' Glasgow Herald 'Gripping' Daily Mirror 'Another brilliant, riveting police procedural. I'm green with envy!' R D Wingfield 'An impressive debut ! an edge-of-your-seat page-turner' Publishers Weekly 'A gritty, roller-coaster, in-your-face thriller' Aberdeen Press and Journal 'A cracking new writer on the crime scene who hooks you from the first page and never lets you go. The action is ferocious and the pace unrelenting' Northern Echo 'Compelling reading' Telegraph 'This is Ian Rankin on Speed ! the humour is black, the violence is apalling, the language is, well, realistic, the entertainment is unflagging. I hunger for the earlier novels ' Adelaide Review

About the Author
Stuart MacBride was born in Dumbarton near Glasgow but grew up in Aberdeen. After a series of jobs including working off-shore, graphic design, voiceovers for local radio and web design he started to write fiction. His first novel, Cold Granite, was shortlisted for the International Thriller Writers' best debut novel and won the Barry Award for the best first novel. Both Cold Granite, and its follow-up, Dying Light, have made the shortlist of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Stuart won the CWA Dagger In the Library Award for a body of work at the CWA Dagger Awards 2007. Dying Light, Broken Skin and Flesh House were all top ten bestsellers. Stuart won Breakthrough Author of the Year at the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in 2008. Stuart lives in north-east Scotland with his wife Fiona, cat Grendel, and a vegetable plot full of weeds.

Customer Reviews

Challenging
This rips along, as do all of McBride's books, and I enjoyed the way in which the characters met in earlier books are developing. In each of McBride's books earlier books there were one or two descriptions which I found difficult to read because so gruesome. In this book, I was caught out several times by the goriness of detail, which I disliked intensely. I'll read the next McBride, but if it exhibits the same trend towards the horrible, I probably won't pick up another. More can be less in short.

grimly good!
Another excellent book in the DS Logan series. i just love the characters (Logan, Steele, Insch). The book is really one of two halves; the first is gruesome but has a lot of character development and black humour - however the second half of the book is less amusing and quite harrowing in parts - difficult to read but difficult not to! i would have given it five stars but i do feel that some of the scenarios were rather offputtingly gory - reading it was like watching the tv betweeen your fingers, you had to take a deep breath before you could enter the world that had been conjured up - but a darn good read all the same!

Just plain awful
Cartoonish characters masquerading as police, a preoccupation with incessant and facile humour, and a plodding one-dimensional plot are all set against interludes of grisly violence. All this did was to give me the equivalent of a literary migraine. Truly awful and devoid of realism. Tip to the author: selective use of humour works best.