Customer Reviews
Quite awful - By: P. W. Kerr, 26 Aug 2008 
Let's get one thing right from the start: Macbride is no Rankin, no matter what you may read elsewhere. Whereas Rankin populates his world with complex, believable characters Macbride opts for tired, shallow cliché & toe-curlingly bad descriptions. He's also lazy, repeating the same descriptions over & over throughout the book, sometimes verbatim. That's either just poor writing or very sloppy editing.
I have no problems with the fact that the plotline is nasty & brutish - after all this is a serial-killer novel! However, Macbride seems to think that the more obscene & graphic he can be the more 'real' it is. Not so. Much of the obscenity does nothing to help the story. It's just there to elicit a 'yuck' reaction & ultimatly it bores & irritates.
What humour? I couldn't find any. Macbride's crass attempts at generating a laugh come across as forced, unsubtle & just not funny. He probably thinks he's being ever so edgy by contrasting some piece of vile description with a supposedly humurous comic counterpoint, but it's the equivalent of schoolboys pointing at a squashed catin the road & giggling - puerile.
So, bad characterisation, gratuitous obscenity & a plot as predicitable as summer rain. I don't feel a need to read anything else he's done.
Could not put this book down - By: K. Langley, 17 Aug 2008 
I loved this book, gory, & yet funnyin places, the humour is a bit dark but still i could not put this book down. I have never been to Aberdeen but the descriptions of places make me want to go.
Logan is a very beleivable character (along with others) who i could really picture. The only character i had a problem with is Miller, i thinks he was a bit predictable & you could see the link between him & Isobel a mile off. The budding romance between Logan & Watson should have developed a bit more.
On the whole a very good read, can't wait to read more from Mr McBride.
Cracker! - By: Mr. P. Waters, 23 Jul 2008 I like Stuart MacBride's writing style as it is very down to earth, for the common man & not condescendingin any way... Often funny, which made some of the darker subject matter more palatable also. Very occasionally, he may come up with an overused cliche or two but I can cope with that as it wasin the minority & he also came with with his own imagery which makes it fresh.
Good how there were about 3 or 4 different streams running through the plot all kind of inter-related by the fact of young kids being found dead, i.e. not all linked by the serial killer.
The characters make it interesting & the lead character Logan is more fallible than others of the genre, which allows more empathy... He makes mistakes while trying to further career.
First time, I've read a crime thriller, whodunnit with a bit of gorein it. Looking forward to the next one... Good marketing ploy, putting the first chapter of the next book at the end also! Reeling the readers in.
It also attracts me as the stories are totally new & have not (yet) been trimmed & toned down for television... Part of me wishes it doesn't get 'Rebussed'!
Definitely hooked!
Excellent book, and looking forward to further stories in the series - By: Al, 20 Jun 2008 
One of Stuart McBride's more recent books caught my eyein a bookshop, but I decided to start at the beginning so I bought this, his first book.
It is an excellent book. Good storyline; complex enough (various children going missing, unidentified bodies being found), but there are enough subtle reminders to help you keep up. There are a few twists & turns as different strong suspects prove to be innocent; quite a good "whodunnit" element. I quite enjoyed the occasional humour.
Excellent characterisation. The main two charactersin particular are very interesting, & I look forward to seeing them develop furtherin forthcoming books. There are plenty of supporting characters, making a very interesting cast, & plenty of scope to bring different people to the forein future stories.
The characterisation is not at the expense of the plot though; the story moves at a decent pace (I have read some books recently that spend so much time describing characters & places that the story hardly progresses - this is not one of them).
This book is excellent when considered as a stand alone story, but it is also a superb starting point for (hopefully) a long series of stories. I can't wait to read the next one...
A stonker of a read - By: Can't Stop Reading, 07 Jun 2008 The author's name being unfamiliar to me, added to the fact this was not an English detective novel which I would normally favour, I had reservations when I ordered this book but thought it worth a try given the reviews. I was more than pleasantly surprised & am now totally hooked on DS 'Lazarus' MacRae & the characters that surround him. Sure, the very descriptive narrative is pretty gruesome to the point of,in places, making me feel a little uncomfortable about reading the details of murdered & abused toddlers interspersed with 'black' humour. But once I overcame that (fairly early onin the novel!)I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline alongside the developing personalities of the central characters. I just didn't want the book to end & only survived the endin the knowledge there are two further booksin the series for me to read.
