Book picks similar to
Dead Cat Bounce by Kevin Scott


crime-fiction
humour
scottish-fiction
5-stars

THE MUNRO & WEST MYSTERIES: four utterly gripping whodunits


Pete Brassett - 2021
    

B&Bers Behaving Madly at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse


Sharley Scott - 2019
    Eccentric or challenging guests are the usual order of the day. But when a sinister man moves in across the road, the first ripples of unease appear.Katie has learned the hard way that a seaside idyll is never what it seems. She and Jason have worked hard at their marriage, but now she has other issues to tackle.While her new cleaner has proved to be a godsend, she comes with a complicated love life. Then there’s Katie and Jason’s daughters, Emily and Lucy, whose boomerang visits definitely have an ulterior motive.And what about the threatening man opposite who has taken an intense dislike to Shona, the madcap owner of the adjoining B&B. Shona’s life has always been chaotic, but now it’s verging on disaster.As the season moves on and guests come and go, Katie fears her daughters have been keeping secrets of their own, while Shona’s troubles come to a head.When the B&Bers are behaving madly, anything can happen. Can Katie weather the storm?

Coastal Tuna (Coastal Adventure Series Number 4)


Don Rich - 2020
    Marlin sees this as a perfect opportunity for the fishing foundation to educate people across the country about the importance of protecting another fishery. He also knows that Mallard Cove Marina on Virginia's Eastern Shore will make the perfect new home for the show, and that its resident charter boats and crews will be part of a great new cast. While he is prepared to deal with the big egos of some of the old cast members, he hadn't figured on having a shadowy saboteur that wanted the show cancelled, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it cancelled...permanently. Nor is he ready for the old cast members that will also stop at nothing to get re-hired and bring the show back south.So, follow the Mallard Cove gang as they deal with those old cast members, and they race to put a stop to the sabotage before someone else gets killed or the show becomes history!

Faecal Money: A Very Lucrative Cr*p (A Raucous Tom Sharpe Style Comedy)


Giles Curtis - 2016
    Easy reading and enjoyable.." - John P Sam's trousers were round his ankles. The microwaved chicken - long past its sell-by date - had made a hasty exit. He was down a ditch in the middle of nowhere, and there weren't any tissues. Suzy had dumped him. Things weren't going well. He was only one wipe away from his life changing forever when he found a blue IKEA bag packed with banknotes. Gary wants to kill him. So does Vlad. Ashton wants to paint him naked and then there's the Contessa. Suzy isn't certain they've broken up. One thing’s for sure: Sam's life has been turned upside down.

Comedy And Error


Simon Day - 2011
    Comedy and Error Simon Day, star of the Fast Show and Bellamy's People tells the shocking, sometimes sad and hilariously funny story of his life so far Full description

The Ballad of Peckham Rye


Muriel Spark - 1960
    When the firm of Meadows, Meade & Grindley hires Dougal Douglas (a.k.a. Douglas Dougal) to do "human research" into the private lives of its workforce, they are in no way prepared for the mayhem, mutiny, and murder he will stir up. "Not only funny but startlingly original," declared The Washington Post, "the legendary character of Dougal Douglas...may not have been boasting when he referred so blithely to his association with the devil." In fact this Music Man of the thoroughly modern corporation changes the lives of all the eccentric characters he meets, from Miss Merle Coverdale, head of the typing pool, to V.R. Druce, unsuspecting Managing Director.

Anxious People


Fredrik Backman - 2019
    As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn’t outside parking the car.As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.

The Boy Vanishes


Jennifer Haigh - 2012
    Taut and powerful, it is a keen reimagining of a whodunit in which everyone is implicated and no one is safe. It’s the summer of 1976 on the South Shore of Massachusetts. The Bicentennial is a season-long celebration, and flags are everywhere, snapping in the seaside winds, ironed onto T-shirts, tattooed into biceps. Tim O’Connor works the Cigarette Game booth at Funland—toss a quarter placed on an eight-sided ball into the right slot and you win two packs of smokes or maybe, if you’re lucky, a carton. If asked his age, he’d say he’s seventeen, but in truth he’s fourteen. Yet the kids in blue-collar Grantham—a town first imagined by Haigh in her devastating bestseller "Faith"—grow up fast, are known for being wild, and more often than not drop out of school to punch the clock at the nearby Raytheon plant. When Tim disappears after the park’s closing one night, no one makes much of it till late morning. It’s not the first time his mother, Kay, has forgotten to pick him up. It’s not the first time he has stayed out all night. By the time local cops begin their investigation, there is little trace of the boy, only witnesses to a complicated set of relationships in a place where surviving isn’t always thriving and where disappointment mixes with the salt in the air. In this superbly crafted story, the search for a missing boy becomes a search for the American dream, laying bare how destructive its promises often are. Recalling Dennis Lehane in setting and subject and masters like Graham Greene and Richard Ford in tone and style, Haigh’s latest work is a testament to all that short fiction can be. It’s a searing portrait of how much a community loses when one of its own is lost.

One by One


Robert Enright - 2015
    Daily Muay Thai training sessions with his best friend, a progressive career as a mechanic and married to Helen, the love of his life. All of it comes to an end on a rainy saturday night in London. When Helen is ripped from the world by the notorious Drayton family on a visit to the capital and the police, including the prodigal Officer Starling, do little to bring them to justice, Lucas embarks on a rain soaked London to put things right himself. As the body count rises and the ripple effects of the escalating violence reaches further than he could have imagined, Lucas has to confront his dark past, his continuous grief, a nationwide police hunt and, of course, the Draytons.... One by One. A riveting story of revenge and redemption with hard-hitting action and heart-wrenching grief, One by One is a must for fans of Crime Thrillers.

The Card


Graham Rawle - 2012
    Now, thirty years later, the one card missing from his collection is the legendary card 19 from the 1967 Mission Impossible television series, of which only one exists.One day a mysterious grey-haired man drops a playing card in a deserted alley. Riley picks it up. Is it a secret sign? Before long, he is finding all kinds of bubble gum and cigarette cards on the street, each one apparently containing a further hidden clue to a coded message. Will Riley rise to the challenge and discover the secret of the cards? And will he ever find illusive card 19?Exquisitely written, extremely funny, and visually stunning, The Card is the utterly unforgettable story of a man who views the world - and everything in it - just a little bit differently from the rest of us.

The Return of the Hippy


David Luddington - 2010
    He thought he understood the way the world worked, but now, as a sacrificial lamb of the credit crunch he finds himself drifting... drifting into the clutches of the ever resourceful Pete who could find the angle in a Fairy Liquid bubble... and into the arms of the enigmatic hippy girl, Astrid, who’s about to introduce Tony to rabbits, magic caves and the joys of mushrooms. eBook of the Month Club describes ‘The Return of the Hippy’ as “The funniest and most heart warming novel of the year.”

The Inspector Torquil McKinnon Series: Books 1-3 (Sapere Books Boxset Editions)


Keith Moray - 2018
    But with the tiny island population suddenly doubling, the local police force is stretched to breaking point. And this year they have to deal with more than just drunken fights and rowdy behaviour… Ranald Buchanan, the local poet, is found dead, with his head brutally caved in, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon is brought into investigate. Did Ranald trip and fall, as suggested? Or is something more sinister happening? Deathly Wind Inspector Torquil McKinnon’s closest friend, Constable Ewan McPhee, is missing, presumed dead. When more bodies are found in suspicious circumstances, it is clear a serial killer is at large. Tensions are high and paranoia is rife. Can Torquil restore peace to the tight-knit community? Will he find out what happened to Constable McPhee? Or will he too fall prey to the depraved murderer …? Murder Solstice A strange group of people have descended on the small island of West Uist. Camped out in the grounds of the Castle, they are preparing to celebrate the summer solstice. Museum curator Finley McNab becomes suspicious of the cult-like group, and when he challenges them it seems his investigations could be deadly … Inspector Torquil McKinnon is called in to keep an eye on the group. Are they innocent pagan worshippers? Or is something more sinister going on behind the scenes? As the day of the solstice draws ever nearer, whispers of murder are on the horizon… THE INSPECTOR TORQUIL MCKINNON BOXSET includes the first three crime thrillers in the detective series featuring Inspector Torquil McKinnon: action-packed police procedurals full of suspense.

Country Doctor


A.J. Cronin - 1935
    J. Cronin’s affectionate look at young Finlay Hyslop, a newly qualified Scottish doctor who assists a seasoned country GP in managing a variety of medical crises.

3:06 a.m. (The Lassie Files Book 1)


Nick Pirog - 2015
    When Lassie and Murdock's game of "What Won't Murdock eat?" goes wrong, a trip to the emergency vet is in order. And when a crazed snake owner takes the vet hostage, it is up to Henry, Lassie, and Murdock to save the day. But they only have one hour. And the clock is ticking... *Disclaimer: THIS IS ONLY 40 PAGES LONG *Disclaimer about the disclaimer: 40 HILARIOUS PAGES :)

Robbing the Dead


Tana Collins - 2017
    To prevent further violence they must find the answers quickly. But will Jim’s old adversary, terror expert McGhee, be a help or a hindrance?The first in a new series featuring DCI Jim Carruthers