📖 Book Review ~ A Death in Glasgow by Eva Macrae

Random House UK
Penguin Books UK
Cornerstone
8 January 2025
Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

She bought a return ticket. She never came back…

When Holly Campbell’s body is found on the train tracks at Glasgow Central, police quickly rule it a suicide.

She’d had a troubled past. She’d tried before.

But Sergeant May Mackay can’t let one detail go. If Holly never wanted to come home, why did she buy a return ticket?

Driven by her own haunting loss and a promise to Holly’s grieving mother, May is determined to solve the mystery.

But the deeper she digs, the more sinister the truth becomes.

Someone is hiding a terrible secret. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it buried.

Even if it means silencing May for good.

📖My Review..

Holly Campbell’s mother is distraught by the violent death of her teenage daughter and appeals to Sergeant May Mackay to do all she can to determine just why Holly landed on the train tracks at Glasgow Central Station. With so many twists and turns this well written and fast paced crime novel certainly hits the ground running and doesn’t let go of the tension until the whole of this complex crime drama has played out.

As it’s the start of what I hope is a new crime series there is a certain amount of scene setting and Sergeant Mackay’s own complex lifestyle certainly adds a very poignant dynamic to the story. However, it is Mackay’s tenacity to get into the very heart of the crime, leaving no stone unturned, in her quest for justice for Holly, and peace of mind for Holly’s grieving mother. Meanwhile as the story progresses May Mackay makes some very powerful enemies amongst the organised crime gangs who prey on the weak and vulnerable of Glasgow’s underbelly. I am sure we’ll get to know more about this corrupt gangland world in future hard hitting crime stories.

Gritty and powerful, A Death In Glasgow is a great introduction to Sergeant May Mackay and I hope to see more of her in future stories.

☕️Best Read With: : A tepid coffee and a hasty sandwich 

About the Author

Eva Macrae is the author of A Death in Glasgow, a thrilling police procedural set in Glasgow which is publishing in January 2026. Having been born in Glasgow, Eva is a former newspaper photographer turned crime

📖 Publication Day Book Review ~ The Unforgiven Dead by Fulton Ross

 

Inkshares
27 July 2023

My thanks to the publishers and to Laura Sherlock for my copy of this book

You could have saved her. Sure as the tide against his Highland shores, the refrain beats into Constable Angus ‘Dubh’ MacNeil’s mind. For years it has haunted him, accompanied by the faces of those he could not save—the Burned Man, the Strangled Woman, the Drowned Boy. All witnesses to a secret he cannot share and a gift he now refuses to embrace. 

You could have saved her. The refrain drives Angus to the seashore at dawn, where a girl lies on the unblemished sand. She wears a green cloak and cradles a corps creadha , a Highland voodoo doll. She has suffered a ritualistic, three-fold death—her head bludgeoned, her throat cut, and symbolically drowned. 

It is Faye Chichester, daughter of an American billionaire whose mission to reintroduce wolves to the Highlands has embroiled the village of Glenruig. But even as media and police swarm the area, that refrain— you could have saved her —echoes in all Angus’s thoughts. For he carries a burden, a blessing, a curse, a secret— dà-shealladh , the second sight of Gaelic lore. Gills MacMurdo, noted folklorist, academic, and Angus’s oldest friend, confirms what the dà-shealladh is warning. Just as Faye’s death was three-fold, so must the murder victims fulfil the ancient pattern. More will die, unless Angus does what he must—close his eyes and see.

📖 My Review

The Scottish Highlands are a place of secrets and shadows and this is captured in this mystery drama which incorporates the myths and legends of folklore and places them firmly into a sophisticated thriller. With its short sharp chapters I was quickly drawn into a murder/mystery which seems to have one foot in superstition, and the other in the drama of local animosity. 

Constable Angus ‘Dubh’ MacNeil carries the burden of having second sight. Plagued by dreams which interrupt his sleep and tear at his soul, and tormented by those victims he couldn't save, Angus is drawn to the beach early one morning where he discovers the body of a young woman. This macabre discovery, plunges Angus right into the heart of the mystery surrounding Faye Chichester's brutal, and ritualistic, death.  What then follows is a tightly packed drama which offers new insight into the popular Scottish Noir genre and combines dark and mysterious with a complex police investigation. However, this is no ordinary police investigation and the small community in the village of Glenruig, a place Angus calls home, is very much part of the developing drama.

The Unforgiven Dead is an atmospheric and brooding crime drama which starts slowly and builds into an imaginative picture of a place riven with secrets, and of a troubled man tormented by his past and of the victims he couldn't save. It is an interesting debut novel by an emerging writer and as it's already been optioned for television I look forward to seeing the story brought to life on screen.

About the Author

Fulton Ross is a writer and journalist from the Scottish Highlands. A graduate in Scottish Literature and History from Glasgow University, he has worked on national newspapers for more than a decade. Inspired by Gaelic folk tales, The Unforgiven Dead is his debut novel. Fulton now lives in Northern Ireland with his wife and three children.

Twitter @FultonLRoss #The UnforgivenDead

@inkshares

@laurasherlock21

Review ~ Fight Back by Anna Smith

Quercus
2 May 2019

Kerry Casey #2

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Gangster Kerry Casey has fought her way to the top of the Glasgow crime scene. But can she stay there? 

Kerry Casey is now a fully-fledged gangland boss. With her business partner Sharon and her wily lawyer Marty at her side, she is busy ridding her organisation of the drug-dealing, people-trafficking scum her dead brother Mickey got them involved with. But her great dream is still to take the Caseys straight. 

Her plan to turn her organisation around hinges on building a property empire in Spain. But Kerry has some deadly rivals - in Glasgow, on the Costa del Sol, and even further afield. They will never believe she has what it takes to defend her turf, and they won't rest until the Caseys are destroyed. 

When her enemies strike at the heart of the Casey family, Kerry must prepare for the fight of her life - for her business, her friends and her own survival.

My Thoughts..

I've come rather late to this gritty crime series but they do say better late than never, so I've just spent a tense few days in the company of gangland boss, Kerry Casey, whose ambition to clean up the 'family business' causes her some problems, especially as the Casey's reputation for shady business dealings goes before them. With the help of her business partner Sharon and her lawyer Marty, Kerry is determined to succeed in bringing the business back on track. However, that's easier said than done, and Kerry has to deal with a lot of aggression from different organisations who don't share the same philosophy.

Filled with a whole range of strong and determined characters and moving between Glasgow and the Costa del Sol, Fight Back is a lively story!  Filled with all the grit, crime and treachery you would expect from gangland noir, and with a strong minded and determined woman in charge, the attention is certainly focused on what it's like to be running a complicated family business in a tough and sometimes, vicious world.

The first Kerry Casey book, Blood Feud certainly gets the series off to a cracking start and the dark and complex themes are definitely continued in this second visit to Glasgow's ganglands. As with any series it's always best to start at the beginning that way you get to learn of all the extra little side stories which can so easily confuse if you've not followed from the start. However, having said that, it is still perfectly possible to read, and thoroughly enjoy, Fight Back as a standalone story.

Quercus
March 2018

About the Author

Anna Smith has been a journalist for over twenty years and is a former chief reporter for the Daily Record in Glasgow. She has covered wars across the world as well as major investigations and news stories from Dunblane to Kosovo to 9/11. Anna spends her time between Lanarkshire and Dingle in the west of Ireland, as well as in Spain to escape the British weather.

Twitter @annasmithauthor #FightBack

@QuercusBooks

Review ~ Song of the Dead by Douglas Lindsay

A dead man walks into a police station. He tells a tale - bizarre as it is grotesque - of kidnap and organ harvesting. John Baden's story of being held prisoner for twelve years sounds far-fetched - but it's all about to get much, much stranger.

DI Ben Westphall has been given the case because of his background in MI6. He also has a knack for getting inside people's heads and seeing things others would miss. Westphall is no ordinary detective and this is no ordinary investigation.

When his suspects start dying, Westphall realises someone is killing to cover up the truth. But what exactly is the truth? To find out, he'll have to question everything he's been told, before there's no one left to ask..

My thoughts..

When a dead man walks into an Estonian Police Station his appearance creates something of a conundrum, not just for the personnel involved, but also for DI Ben Westphall who is the Scottish detective in charge of the British side of the investigation. The 'dead' man's sudden arrival creates more questions than it does answers and before long Westphall is dragged into a bizarre investigation which gets more and more complicated as the story evolves.

I liked Ben Westphall from the beginning, he's an interesting character and his background in MI6 mean he has a good eye for working out the improbable, that he is also rather flawed, goes a long way into making him an interesting leading man. As with any new series there is a certain amount of scene setting and background about the lead characters but this was achieved smoothly and didn't get in the way of what is, in effect, a really tense murder mystery.

Song of the Dead is a really cleverly plotted crime thriller, with more than enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing. Its complicated story line moving between dangerous situations both in Eastern Europe and some rather dark events in Scotland makes for fascinating reading.

Three titles in the DI WESTPHALL series will be coming from Mulholland Books in 2019.

About the Author

Douglas Lindsay was born in Scotland in 1964, at 2:38 am. Thirty-five years of little note ensued, before the world heralded the publication of his first book, The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson, which was adapted was adapted for the screen starring Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone and Emma Thompson. As he was leaving the house to undertake a public engagement for the first time, his wife kissed him on the cheek and said, 'Whatever you do, don't be yourself...' Sadly, Lindsay continues to ignore her advice to this day.

Lindsay worked at the Ministry of Defence for over ten years and is married to a diplomat. He has lived in Dakar, Belgrade, Warsaw and Tallinn, an experience that inspired Song of the Dead. He now lives and writes full time in Somerset with his wife and their two children. 

 Twitter @DTSLindsay #SongOfTheDead


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