The Hanging Shed


Gordon Ferris - 2010
    Now, the war is over but victory's wine has soured and Brodie's back in Scotland to try and save childhood friend Hugh Donovan from the gallows. Everyone thought Donovan was dead, shot down in the war. Perhaps it would have been kinder if he had been killed. The man who returned was unrecognizable: mutilated, horribly burned. Donovan keeps his own company, only venturing out for heroin to deaden the pain of his wounds. When a local boy is found raped and murdered, there is only one suspect...Donovan claims he's innocent but a mountain of evidence says otherwise. Despite the hideousness of the crime, ex-policeman Brodie feels compelled to try and help his one-time friend. Working with Donovan's advocate Samantha Campbell, Brodie trawls both the mean streets of the Gorbals and the green hills of western Scotland in their search for the truth. What they find is an unholy alliance of church, police and Glasgow's deadliest razor gang, happy to slaughter to protect their dark secrets. As time runs out for the condemned man, and the tally of murdered innocents rises, Brodie reverts to his wartime role as a trained killer. It's them or him.

The Sunday Philosophy Club


Alexander McCall Smith - 2004
    1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, begins a wonderful new series starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie.Isabel is fond of problems, and sometimes she becomes interested in problems that are, quite frankly, none of her business. This may be the case when Isabel sees a young man plunge to his death from the upper circle of a concert hall in Edinburgh. Despite the advice of her housekeeper, Grace, who has been raised in the values of traditional Edinburgh, and her niece, Cat, who, if you ask Isabel, is dating the wrong man, Isabel is determined to find the truth—if indeed there is one—behind the man's death. The resulting moral labyrinth might have stymied even Kant. And then there is the unsatisfactory turn of events in Cat's love life that must be attended to.Filled with thorny characters and a Scottish atmosphere as thick as a highland mist, The Sunday Philosophy Club is irresistible, and Isabel Dalhousie is the most delightful literary sleuth since Precious Ramotswe.

Gun Church


Reed Farrel Coleman - 2011
    But when he saves his class from a potential bloodbath, he is initiated by two of his students into a cult-like group that worships the essential nature of handguns, and rekindles his long-absent creative spark. But as Weiler's involvement with the cult deepens and the end of his novel is in sight, the lines between art and life blur until they become unrecognizable. In this church, there's no need for red wine or wafers. In Gun Church, the blood and bodies are for real.

Now We Are Dead


Stuart MacBride - 2017
    Now he’s back on the streets and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good.The Powers That Be won’t listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she’s got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy. Perhaps she could try solving a few instead of harassing an innocent man?Steel knows Wallace is guilty. And the longer he gets away with it, the more women will suffer. The question is: how much is she willing to sacrifice to stop him?

The DCI Jack Logan Collection Books 1-3: A Scottish Crime Fiction Series


J.D. Kirk - 2020
    

Guide Star


Joy Ellis - 2017
    You won't want to put it down. WHO DO YOU TURN TO WHEN LIFE GOES WRONG? WHO IS YOUR GUIDE STAR? Stella won’t give up, but she doesn’t know how to go on. Stella North, a rising star in the police, has her life torn apart by a gunman’s bullets. She has often faced danger, but these injuries mean she must give up the job she loves. Her grandmother Beth is her rock. And Beth is no ordinary woman. At seventy, she runs marathons and has a past that Stella knows very little about. Beth calls in her friend Michael to help with Stella’s recovery. But this man means a lot more to Beth than she reveals. And Stella’s ex-husband Edward and old police partner Robbie want to help, but Stella puts up emotional barriers, and they have problems of their own. Her old friends from her days of Urbex (exploring old abandoned buildings) offer a glimmer of hope for the future. Will Stella find the strength to overcome the challenges of her new life, and will her grandmother at last resolve the deep emotional turmoil of her past?

Blood Falls


Tom Bale - 2011
    He was wrong. One grey October morning, while working in a quiet Bristol street, he hears the voice of the man who has sworn to destroy him. Minutes later Joe is running for his life again.Desperate for sanctuary, he heads for the small Cornish town of Trelennan, and the home of Diana Bamber, widow of a former police colleague. But Diana reacts strangely to his arrival, and gradually Joe discovers that Trelennan is far from the idyllic, law-abiding resort it claims to be.The town is in the grip of one man. Leon Race doesn't welcome strangers, especially ex-cops who start asking questions about missing women. Soon Joe is caught up in another undercover role, but as he penetrates the web of secrets that ensnares the town's elite, his own secret is at risk of discovery. And all the time his old enemy is circling ...

Mystery Man


Colin Bateman - 2009
    He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It's not as if there's any danger involved. It's an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewellery shop across the road, will surely be impressed. Except she's not - because she can see the bigger picture. And when they break into the shuttered shop next door on a dare, they have their answer. Suddenly they're catapulted along a murder trail which leads them from small-time publishing to Nazi concentration camps and serial killers...

The Spider Shepherd Collection 5-7: Dead Men, Live Fire, Rough Justice


Stephen Leather - 2013
    Dead MenFormer SAS trooper turned undercover cop Dan Spider Shepherd knows there are no easy solutions in the war against terrorism. But when a killer starts to target pardoned IRA terrorists, Shepherd has to put his life on the line to protect his former enemies; and as a Muslim assassin closes in on his prey, Shepherd realises that the only way to save lives is to become a killer himself. Live FireDan 'Spider' Shepherd is infiltrating a tightly-knit team of bank robbers, when a group of home-grown Islamic fundamentalist fanatics embark on a campaign of terror the like of which Britain has never seen. Car bombs and beheadings are only the prelude of what they have planned. And Shepherd is the only man who can stop them. Rough JusticeVillains across London are being beaten, crippled and killed by vigilante cops. Crime rates are falling, but the powers that be want Dan 'Spider' Shepherd to bring the wave of rough justice to an end. Shepherd has always known that there are grey areas in the fight against crime, and that sometimes justice gets lost in the process. But when his own family is brought into the firing line, Shepherd has some hard decisions of his own to make.

Power of Attorney


James Patterson - 2021
    

Mistress of the Just Land: A Jean Brash Mystery 1


David Ashton - 2019
    Once a child of the streets, she is now Mistress of the Just Land, the best bawdy-hoose in Edinburgh and her pride and joy. But a murder in her establishment could wreck everything.New Year's Day - and through the misty streets of Victorian Edinburgh an elegant, female figure walks the cobblestones - with a certain vengeful purpose. Jean Brash, the Mistress of the Just Land, brings her cool intelligence to solving a murder, a murder that took place in her own bawdy-hoose. A prominent judge, strangled and left dangling, could bring her whole life to ruin and she didn't haul herself off the streets, up through low dirty houses of pleasure and violent vicious men - to let that come to pass. The search for the killers will take Jean back into her own dark past as she uncovers a web of political and sexual corruption in the high reaches of the Edinburgh establishment. A young boy's death long ago is demanding justice but, as the body count increases, she has little time before a certain Inspector James McLevy comes sniffing round like a wolf on the prowl. Jean may be on the side of natural justice but is she on the side of the law? Or will the law bring her down?

The Lies Between Us


J.A. Leake - 2021
    These Southern preschool moms have it all, from lavish homes and successful husbands to elegant luncheons ripe with gossip and exclusive parties everyone longs to attend. Behind closed doors, however, they are consumed with illicit affairs, monumental debt, nervous breakdowns, and dark secrets.When an anonymous texter threatens to uncover the lies each of the women has fought to keep buried, they must band together to discover who is behind the vicious blackmail. As the pressure of being exposed grows and their carefully presented lives begin to unravel, their friendship fractures, leaving them to question even those they once held dear.Maria, Sissy, Sarah-Anne, and Lauren must face their demons head-on and race to discover the identity of the anonymous texter before it's too late.Someone's life is depending on it.

Operative 66


Andy McDermott - 2020
    But now Reeve is in the firing line. Framed as a traitor, Reeve is forced to flee as C6 agents are instructed to eliminate the 'rogue asset' at any cost. Reeve must survive, alone and under the radar, with the full power of the state arrayed against him.He doesn't know why he's a target. Or who betrayed him. But if one man has the skills necessary to uncover the truth...it is Operative 66.From the international bestseller comes an explosive and action-packed new thriller - the perfect pulse-racing read for fans of LEE CHILD, DAVID BALDACCI, ROBERT LUDLUM and GREGG HUWITZ.

Beyond Cutting


Vicki Clifford - 2013
    This is no ordinary hairdresser. Viv Fraser Ph.D and stylist to the Edinburgh establishment, has a double life as an investigative journalist and finds herself involved in some hair-raising, not to mention explosive scenes, as she trawls the seamier side of her city. In this fast-paced mystery Viv investigates the case of a missing teenage boy, but her efforts are hampered by people trying to save their own skin. Always top of his class, Andrew’s school blazer turns up on a river path without him. As she picks at the veneer of the Capital’s gay scene Viv discovers an unsavoury mix of lies, jealousy and sexual deceit. Determined to find Andrew, she ignores threats on her life and continues to dig in places that even Detective Marconi has yet to explore.

The Body Snatcher


Robert Louis Stevenson - 1884
    Jekyll and Mr. HydeMedical school students Fettes and Macfarlane are charged with the unenviable task of receiving and paying for the institution’s research cadavers. When Fettes recognizes the dead body of a woman he saw alive and well just the day before, he suspects murder. Macfarlane, however, insists that the authorities would never believe they had nothing to do with her death. Reluctantly, Fettes agrees to keep quiet, but soon regrets his decision when another familiar corpse turns up—and takes on a life of its own.