2006 mystery/thriller, tartan noir. Years ago in Arbroath, David's
best friend Colin died in an accident just as he was about to become a
professional footballer. David ran away from the memories and made a
new life for himself in Edinburgh. But now there's going to be a
school reunion.
That's an understated but really neat trick, actually: obviously
David wouldn't go back to this place he's spent his adult life
avoiding, but he's contacted by Nicola, who's been drafted into
finding old pupils and whom he fancied back in the day. They strike
sparks, and that's enough to make him willing to go along.
There's less of the comic gruesomeness that I associate with Brookmyre
and MacBride, the other authors I've read who are generally regarded
as tartan noir. For that matter, I found the plot surprisingly
straightforward and predictable, without the unexplainable occurrences
and twisty connections that those other writers use.
Mostly this is about character and atmosphere, and about a story of
romance that's punctuated by more deaths, funerals, and police
involvement. There are some amateurish attempts at investigation, but
the shift to the climactic sequence of action feels essentially
accidental; indeed, the resolution of the plot uses one of my less
favourite villainous motivations, but I was sufficiently engaged by
the people and the writing that I didn't much mind.
I found it very obvious that Nicola was really the protagonist of this
book, having to make hard decisions with significant psychological
stakes, while David mostly went along with things. I wonder whether
Johnstone would agree.