The Dead of Winter, by Stuart MacBride.
Detective Constable
Edward Reekie is wondering why he ever became a Police Officer, especially when
he is doing all the driving through unrelenting winter snowfall to a remote
Scottish village to deliver an old crim on his last legs – and from the sound of him, his last lung: he’s also
transporting his ungrateful and surly temporary boss, Detective Inspector
Victoria Montgomery-Porter, who hopes to get a deathbed confession from said
old crim Marky Bishop about various places that he has stashed money from his
many bank heists.
‘Good luck with that, Bigtoria’ thinks her chauffeur
unkindly. He is not looking forward to
Glenfarach, their destination; it’s
literally full of felons, a kind of a Last Stop before they kiss their evil
backsides goodbye. It’s a dumping ground
for Scotland’s worst paedos, rapists, murderers and sickos, the kind whom
ordinary people don’t want in their neighbourhood, and will set fire to their
accommodation to drive them out, so the authorities have come up with the ideal
solution: convert an abandoned country
estate into a mini-open prison, staffed by Police Scotland’s finest.
All very well and good, except that driving conditions
are frightening and Edward is having a hard time keeping their piece-of-shite
squad car on the road, and his nasty intolerant boss is demanding more
speed. The only thing Edward can do is
say ‘Yes, Gov’, and hope that the need for speed won’t see them all dead in a
ditch, or wrapped in a loving embrace with a Scottish Pine.
The nightmare trip doesn’t end at their destination; shortly after their arrival, the first murder
occurs, that of a child-molester whom the ‘ordinary’ crims despise, then despite
the continuing unrelenting snowstorm, someone unknown (well, of course!) sets
fire to the child-molester’s house, destroying all forensic evidence, including
his body, which had been most cruelly tortured.
Bigtoria is beside herself, not only because everything has gone up in
smoke, but because all the technology has gone on the blink, not to mention
ordinary power: they are literally functioning
in the dark. And it also means that
reinforcements won’t arrive from the nearest police centre until the weather
dies down. How is any one supposed to
police efficiently in such conditions?
Which are only exacerbated by the next almost identical killing.
Stuart MacBride never disappoints: he creates wonderfully credible characters,
and in this stand-alone story he has woven so many twists and turns into the
narrative that I could only gape at his cleverness. And it’s all done – not with mirrors – but a
fantastic humour and feel for dialogue that has always made each of his books a
pleasure to read. FIVE STARS.
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