For DI Steel, doyenne of the Aberdeen police “f***-up” squad, every day is a bad-hair day. The addition of DS Logan McRae, MacBride’s maverick cop hero, to Steel’s team of rejects is not an occasion for delight for either of them. However, with dismembered dogs, murdered prostitutes, drug-gang heavies and an arsonist on the loose, there are other problems to think about. MacBride writes about truly vile crimes (who knew Aberdeen had such a dark side?) with biting humour, endowing his characters with his own eye-wateringly pungent way with words. It works, because he — and McRae — never lose their humanity, and it creates a darkly enjoyable addition to the Scottish detective-fiction canon.
(HarperCollins £15.99, 6 hours, abridged)