The sixth in the “DI Rob Marshall” Scottish police procedural sequence. And you have to read the other five for this one to make any sense at all.
‘The blood tox came back saying she had drunk enough booze to banjax an aircraft carrier full of sailors.”
Ed James writes these books fast, and they fizz with that energy, even as he seems on the verge of losing control of the material completely. The crime plots are excellent, there’s a sense of humour at play, and James delights in subverting the norms of the form just a little bit. At this point in the sequence, there are too many characters – it does that thing anyone who’s read a later M*A*S*H book recognises, where the plot contrives to use every single bloody character from all the other bloody books — but James has realised this and goes a bit Mick Herron in this one. One hopes that the surprise cullings open up space for some of the cast to get more space in the next book, rather than creating slots for new characters. I personally also hope James has developed a taste for blood and decides to remove some more of that cast.
But I read Ed James for the intelligently built crimes and investigations, and this was a good one. Marshall himself is often good company – even if I was shouting at him and James at the end of the book. Which in itself is probably a sign of well-cultivated investment.