The Missing and the Dead. Stuart MacBride. Harper (2015)

Brutal, brutally funny and gripping this Scottish crime story is deeply enjoyable and engaging. Coming off a disastrous court case Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae finds himself back in uniform as a patrol sergeant in a remote Scottish town. When he finds the body of a very young girl in an outdoor swimming pool the case may be an opportunity to move back. The investigation is lead by Logan's old boss, Detective Chief Inspector Steel and quickly develops into just one of the very many problems that shower down on him. Thieves who pull cash point machines out of the wall and vanish, local drug dealers with aspirations to move up the league and a mother desperate to find her daughter are all significant complications.
Logan McRae is a great character, he is capable, professional, determined and just unlucky enough to find that the solution to one problem is the start of another problem.This gives the plot mechanics great force and energy as events never quite unfold as might be expected. None of the cast are willing to a walk on part, all of them speak with clear individual voices that demand attention and engagement from the reader. The black humour is absolutely rooted in the cast and context and gives the story a depth and edge that allow the genuinely brutal action scenes deliver with force and momentum.
DCI Steele remains a joy to be with on the page, vibrantly lesbian and chaotic, she is dedicated, competent and very determined.
The plot mechanics are superbly structured as they overlap and press against each other, the reveals are brilliantly staged to complicate and reveal. The threads are drawn together very convincingly and the ferocious and deeply sad confrontation at the climax is natural and unforced
The outstanding confidence that Stuart McBride has to write this book creates a deep and abiding pleasure for a reader, they can be confident that they are being moved along by a master. Top fiction, stunning crime fiction.

Close to the Bone. Stuart MacBride. HarperCollins (2013)

Full tilt crime story awash with blood, brutal violence and pitch black humour all combined with a fantastic cast and great plot mechanics.A body is found chained to a stake, a burning type around its neck. The victim is revealed to been strangled and stabbed as well as burned. With Asian immigrants being savagely attacked and crippled and a gang war over drugs heating up Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae is feeling the pressure in Aberdeen. With two missing teenagers, a new Detective Sergeant and a fraught and complicated relationship with the dying local crime boss matters do not get any less complicated. The plot threads are superbly brought together, the action is ferocious and the conclusion every bit as nasty as it should be.
The glory of the story are the astonishing cast, Stuart MacBride continues to make his series cast fresh, engaging and very funny in the face of the most appalling events.
By far the hardest task that Logan McRae has is to retain his status as the leading character in the story as he is surrounded by a large a wonderfully lively cast all jostling for the readers attention. Detective Chief Inspector Steel remains one of the best characters in contemporary crime fiction, as foul mouthed as ever, she is a stinging rebuke to all writers who trap their characters within the confines of their sexuality. DCI Steel is vigorously lesbian as well as being a disruptive force of nature and a very competent police officer. Her presence electrifies the story and the cast with her astonishing range of inventive, savage wit and sheer energy. At the same time even a small walk part on by a man, who inflicts a nearly unbearable punishment beating, is more than a convenient thug, the details given to him and the scene itself lift it up.
The weakest notes in the book are struck by the cast member who is suffering significant psychotic delusions, while this should give her more force the comparison between her delusions and the absurd and horrifying reality in the the city do not favour her. However wild she is, the cold blooded greed and persistent savagery of others in the cast overshadows her.
The plot mechanics are impeccable, the plot lines converge, separate and then collide with tremendous force and superb story logic. The cast never feel driven by the plot, it seems to ignite directly through their actions with and on each other. Not for the faint of heart and needing a very high tolerance for vividly described violence, the story never reads as if it could have been delivered any other way, fantastic.

Shatter the Bones. Stuart MacBride. Harper (2012)

A brutally compelling and engrossing thriller. Plunging into the story right from the opening down to the flinty and unforgiving conclusion this story never slows down. A mother and daughter, rising stars of a televised talent show, are kidnapped and the ransom demand is posted on the internet. The police are left with no clues and increasing public and professional pressure. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae and his colleagues are facing a very public and dangerous failure. As the the pressure mounts McRae find that the results of a botched drugs raid are becoming very nasty. The story, laced with the blackest gallows humour, moves at speed, the reveals are cunningly staged and the the truth is always much worse that it it appears at first. The plot leaves no-one unscathed and the innocent pay the greatest price.
The bleak plot is  gripping, it is still less of an attraction than the vigorous and fantastic cast that boil with energy, frustration and the unmistakable pulse of life. Logan McRae has to work very hard to keep up with the rest of the cast, most particularly the specular DI Steel, who bursts off the pages with a foul mouthed glory. The whole cast of police officers, with a single sorry exception, are satisfyingly diverse and free from genre cliches. They feel like a team under fierce pressure and responding badly while trying to do the job properly. The exception is a surprisingly false note struck by an ambitious and frankly stupid officer from an outside agency. He is a straw man constructed for no clear reason other that to give a face to the bureaucratic pressure the team are under.It is a serious flaw in the book that is written with subtly and care for all the cast no matter how small their role. The walking cliché trips up the reader and throws the reader out of the flow of the story. 
Happily the overall force of the book is so great that it is possible to get back into the swing and enjoy the very savage world that Stuart MacBride has created. The clever manipulation of the easily roused public, entranced by the drama of the kidnapping and enjoying the participation invited by the kidnappers is not heavy handed. The temptation to preach about televised talent shows and the manufacturing of  stars is avoided, the opportunities it presents for brutal exploitation are well presented. The villains are well organised and suitably ruthless, they make the plot work because they are never easy prey. A sub-plot about a the fall out from a drugs raid gives Stuart MacBride plenty of room to create a very memorable cast of shattered and desperate people who are gripping without ever being sympathetic. Using humour to undercut despair this is a superb thriller.

Dark Blood. Stuart MacBride. HarperCollins (2010)

This is a gripping, savage, brutal and very darkly funny thriller with a superbly realised cast and a great setting. Richard Knox, a violent sexual predator, is released from prison and being housed in Aberdeen. DS Logan McRae is involved with the protection of Richard Knox, aided by Detective Superintendent Danby from Nothumbria, the man who had arrested Knox years earlier. Complicating matters are the efforts by an Edinburgh gangster to set up in Aberdeen, counterfeit goods and money and a thief robbing jewelry shops with a sawn-off sledgehammer. The reveals are staged with care and relish, the cast are all active and engaging, the plot gets darker with each turn and it leads to a horrifying conclusion.
Everything in this story works well, the setting, Aberdeen in the snowy depths on winter, acts as the bleak backdrop to the even bleaker activities of the cast. Logan McRae is is a downward spiral, personally and professionally and his efforts to regain a hold om his life push nicely against the currents of the story. The plot is big and very well constructed, the main story weaves and twists alongside a number of smaller threads, neither detract for each other and they combine to give a vivid picture of the criminal activity within the city.
Bursting out of the book is Detective Inspector Steel, a foul mouthed force of nature who provides a great deal of the book tar black humour. The whole cast are given a vivid life and their active determination gives the story tremendous energy and momentum. This violent, unpredictable and very funny book is a great read, written with great care and skill, top flight crime fiction.

Halfhead. Stuart B. Macbride. HarperVoyager (2009)

A very savage science fiction thriller, gripping and imaginative. Sometime in the future serious criminals are lobotomised and mutilated and set to menial and public tasks as a punishment and a warning. One of them recovers her memory and sense of self and starts to climb back to life, which is a problem as she is a terrifyingly efficient serial killer. At the same time Assistant Section Director William Hunter, working with a branch of the police service call the Network, finds himself drawn into a murder at Shermam House, the site of a huge and murderous riots years previously. Slowly the paths of both the revived half head and ASD Hunter start to overlap and the threads of the past become woven into the present. The story is superbly structured, the reveals are cunningly paced, the action is brutal and the climax nasty and explosive.

Stuart B. Macbride has neatly solved how to blend two genres, serial killer thriller and science fiction dystopia without a loss to either. The context for the action is carefully set up and it feels solid and real. Glasgow feels like a member of the cast, the sprawling city comes to life, the details of the technology and the weapons are nicely placed, understated and accepted. Explanations arise from the activities of the cast which gives the context great force. Stuart B. Macbride has a very strong grasp on how large organisations work, the way that the staff within them react to each other and to staff from other organisations. This gives his cast a very effective workplace and allows for a large cast to respond and react to each other with real vigour and tension. Dr. Westfield is a very frightening villain, passionate about her murderous mission and enjoying her work, she provides a real threat throughout the story. The echos of the Hannibal Lector novels are slightly intrusive, they do not overshadow the story, this is very much a work in its own right. Excellent, gory , gripping.

Blind Eye. Stuart Macbride. HarperCollinsPublishers. (2009)

A bleakly funny, savagely brutal and very gripping crime story. In Aberdeen Polish men are being found with their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned, the victims are left alive after the mutilations. Detective Sargent Logan McRae under the supervision of the bitingly sarcastic Detective Chief Inspector Finnie, is involved in the case. With the presence of a paedophile who becomes a witness , a gang from Manchester who are bent on trouble and strong indications that a major gang war is brewing the situation continues to become more complicated and desperate. The reveals are wonderfully paced, the writing is razor sharp and the big and wonderfully energetic cast drive the story to a suitably grim conclusion.

This is crime writing of the highest order, the action is brutal and vividly described, the plot is tightly wound and carefully constructed. The glory of the book is the cast that swirls and swears their way through the story. Logan McRae is a superb central character, he is battered and bruised and frequently unlucky, he is also diligent, compassionate and genuinely and sometimes falteringly trying to do the right thing.

Detective Inspector Steel emerges in this book to take her rightful place as one of the greatest characters in contemporary crime fiction. Stuart Mcbride has done something wonderful, he has created a lesbian character whose sexuality is central to who she is and proudly worn and completely irrelevant to to her professional life. DI Steel is mater-of-factly lesbian, she is also heroically foul mouthed, temperamental and extremely competent. She is a wonderfully realised character, one of the significant pleasures of the book. A great read.

Flesh House. Stuart Macbride. 2009 (Harper)

Flesh House is the fourth of Stuart Macbride's crime novels set in Aberdeen and featuring Detective Sergeant Logan (Lazarus) McRae and I think it is the best to date. This is saying a great deal as all the books are very skillfully written, brimming with tar black humour and as grim as the awful crimes they deal with.
In this book Stuart Macbride has changed the structure from the previous three, previously there was a double plot strand in the books, in this one there is just a single focus for the story. Human flesh is found in a supply of meat being sent to an oil rig and this sparks fears that a violent killer, nicknamed, The Flesher, a old name for a butcher, has resumed his activities. A man had been caught, tried and imprisoned for those crimes, he is now out on appeal and the attacks have re-started. The members of the original investigating team are also being attacked.
There is a very large cast in the book and everyone is given the space and time to establish themselves before increasing numbers of them are killed off.
Any book like this has to do a number of things successfully, the villain has to be sufficiently grotesque to stand out from a very crowed field yet be sufficiently credible to retain the interest of the reader. The challenge to the investigating team has to be huge but not inexplicable, it must unravel in a natural way. Most of all there must be a believable, almost palpable sense of place and context that gives the reader an anchor for the events and allows the events to gain momentum and traction.
Stuart Macbride scores on all these points, in particular with the sense of place that he has been building up over the previous books, Aberdeen and its surroundings have emerged as a distinctive and assertive character in the books and this is very important to the success of the book. The human cast are equally well developed and developing, while Logan McRae is the leading character, he is surrounded by a vividly drawn and bolshie cast who all demand attention and sthrengthen the book.
As for the Flesher and his activities he is a very successful bogeyman in a butchers apron and a Margret Thatcher mask. While his activities are described in awful detail, he remains a shadowy figure and all the better for it. There is a sort of explanation, it is not convincing and could easily and profitably have been dropped from the book.
Overall this is a griping, bloody and melancholy book, it is a terrific read.