A body is washed up on the shore by Kinloch - a woman's naked body. The doctor attending points out the ligature around her neck and suggests it's murder.
DI Jim Daley is sent from Glasgow to investigate and soon his DS, Brian Scott joins him with a support unit.
Soon two more bodies are found murdered in different ways but similarly enough to be linked and the hunt is on for a serial killer.
This is the first book in the series featuring DI Daley - in which he does get promoted to DCI - and it's very much a starter. I read "The Last Witness" first and missed out on the character introductions. In this book we get to really understand the main characters and grow to know and like Daley and Scott in particular. Meyrick is not averse to throwing another body or two in to hold the readers attention and build the tension a little higher while at the same time spinning out the clues and giving wrong interpretations of them just to confuse you. The author also spends time introducing the town of Kinloch and the fickle weather of the area as well as getting you drawn into the beautiful countryside that the town is set in. Daley is prime for a TV series and one day there will be tour buses...
Ok, I had the killer tagged quite early but this is not so much a whodunnit as a thriller and an excellent one at that.
My advice is though:- Read these books in order. There is a big spoiler in book two that makes the ending of this one more of a "uh?" than a thrilling one. Also I didn't get as strong a feel for the characters in the second book as I did in this one. Read this book first and you'll enjoy the later books even more and be hooked into the series until the end - whenever that may be.
Publisher - Polygon
Genre - Crime thriller
Thanks for the tip re reading in order! I've had no. 2 for ages and just got no.1 (99p on Kindle!) so I'll definitely take your advice. New one - Dark Suits And Sad Songs (or possibly vice versa) - is being launched May 14th in my local Waterstones (Oban) Since I've been blogging I've moaned about no events happening here, and since then we've had Alex Gray (not an official appearance, but she agreed to meet me), Alex Salmond (who kindly gifted us a copy of his book, as we were just there for a selfie!), and now Denzil Meyrick. I'm clearly highly influential...LOL!
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