2015 supernatural mystery, fifth in Oswald's Inspector McLean
series. In a network of man-made caves under Edinburgh, a journalist
turns up with his throat cut. Why there, why then, and why him?
This is another fine series entry, continuing the slow process of
change that's been going on since the beginning. There's less of the
blatantly supernatural than last time round, but rather more of
McLean's acceptance that even if he doesn't want to believe in this
magic stuff he's dealing with criminals who very much do.
Some of the best and subtlest touches are in the characterisation of
McLean himself, who's still a workaholic even if he's become a rather
better-adjusted one since the early books; he's still quick to
criticise and slow to praise, and he still lets his paperwork get out
of control, but he's changed in small and subtle ways, not least in
the portrayal of other people from his viewpoint: where the tabloid
reporter Jo Dalgleish has always been shown as a bane of McLean's
life, this time he is forced to work with her, and she doesn't seem so
terribly bad after all. McLean's immediate superior Duguid has mellowed
remarkably, or maybe it's just that McLean is less prone to see only
the worst side of him. For this reason I'd advise against starting the
series here; it's definitely better read from the beginning.
This doesn't play entirely straight with the rules of mysteries, and
if you're expecting a conventional puzzle-solving story you'll be
disappointed; this isn't about working out whodunnit so much as about
following the police investigation while already knowing many, though
not all, of the answers. More than ever before in the series, this is
about the people more than the crimes.
Now it looked unpleasantly like the kind of thing you might find in
one of the more esoteric butchers' shops. The kind where you could
buy all the parts of the animal never intended for eating unless
they'd been finely minced, mixed with oatmeal and spices, shoved in
a sheep's stomach and boiled first.
To be followed in 2016 by Damage Done.
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