About three years ago I discovered Stuart MacBride’s Logan McRae novels, and devoured the entire 12-novel series within a year. Since then, I’ve read his Ash Henderson series and several standalone books. MacBride has become one of my favourite authors. I’m a big fan of the Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride and was looking forward to reading a copy of his latest standalone novel, The Dead of Winter. The book is released on 16th February.

A claw-foot bath dominated one wall, topped by a mildewed shower-curtain. Crusts of dark-orange and brown limescale around the drain. Lid and seat up on the toilet, showing off a whole Formula-One- season of skid marks.” There you have it, the writing style of Stuart MacBride enriched with toilet humour, rude rather than crude remarks, a list of very colourful and dur Scottish characters hidden loosely under crime/noir. Now let me say from the start I have been reading this authors books from the early days of Cold Granite, the first Logan McCrea novel and have always found his style refreshing and indeed at times highly amusing (who could forget DCI Roberta Steel and her testing sense of humour most of it at the expense of Logan who she rather fondly called Laz :) I read THE DEAD OF WINTER in two days, but it has taken me four weeks to write a review. The problem was not the rating. I knew as soon as I’d finished that I would give it four stars. It wasn’t as good as his very best, but it was a solid four-star read. It goes without saying that there were many possible culprits and with hindsight I realised I should have guessed who the murderer was. In fact I was completely surprised. The ending is very exciting.

We learn right off the bat in the “0” chapter what happens to Edward, but you’re not even halfway through the second chapter before you start to suspect you might not much care what happened or be very sad to see him go. He is an annoying little know-it-all who has no doubt he’s smart, funny, and has to get in the last word. Even death doesn’t seem to have shut him up. It’s a constant stream of comments, complaints, whining, pronouncements about Bigtoria’s attitude, behavior and incompetence, the food, the weather, the cold, the snow, and if only they would just have listened to him. The more time we spend with him the more we agree 100% when he says, “I never really wanted to be a police officer.” The Dead of Winter is a very complicated story that in the end is not so complicated if you think it through. It’s just that it’s full of twists and turns and red herrings. It’s also full of interesting characters, starting with DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter and DC Edward Reekie – on the good side. There are a lot – and I mean a LOT – of criminals in this book but the most important one is Mark Bishop and frankly… he’s as interesting as Victoria and Edward. Maybe even a little more interesting even. It's bad enough that everyone else is huddled at home during this blizzardy weather. But policeman don't have that luxury and DC Edward Reekie is on the job. He's just gotten a new boss, DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter and he's not sure how that will work out. His current assignment is to take a dying prisoner to a place where he can live his last few months. Well ... this book certainly opens up in an unexpected manner. The prologue really is one of those killer (every pun intended) moments that draws me into a story, whether I like it or not. And I really did like it. Intriguing, chilling, quite literally for the characters, and with the kind of ending which catches you unawares and, in my case, made me absolutely want to know just what in the hell is going on. It's also the kind of prologue that Stuart MacBride is a master in, creating an overwhelming sense of suspicion from the start, particularly when it comes to one of the key characters. But as to their true nature, and the meaning of that opening scene - well the only way I was going to find out was to read the rest of the book, something that proved to be a rather unexpected, but enjoyable, experience. I liked Reekie as a character. He is trusting, out upon by his superior, and a bit of whipping boy at times (sound familiar?), but he is determined, if a little accident prone. His enthusiasm is endearing, and sometimes draining, and his attempt to get the community on side using the sugar not vinegar approach leads to some really comedic moments, highlighting that touch of naivety which endeared him to me. As for Montgomery-Porter (aka Bigtoria), she's abrupt, dismissive and very much distracted. A hard character to warm, with or without the thigh high snow drifts.

There are a few plot twists, although I guessed who the murderer was very early in the tale. Other revelations were somewhat of a surprise, but were not completely startling. Most of the readability comes from the dilemmas that Reekie lands in. He is continually cold, miserable, and wet. (There are 285 references to “snow” in THE DEAD OF WINTER, 62 references to “cold”, and numerous mentions of related concepts such as “freezing”, “wet”, “shiver”, etc.) You cannot say the Stuart MacBride writes ‘easy to read’ thrillers. I’m happy with that because I like to be challenged by a good story, with an intricate plot and surprising characters.

The weather's closing in, tensions are mounting, and time's running out - something nasty has come to Glenfarach, and Edward is standing right in its way...

DC Reekie is an inspired characterand with most of the narrative being form his viewpoint, I was totally gripped - his humerous antipathy towards his boss, his caustic observations combined with his vulnerability makes him a fascinating character. There are some really good, creative and colourful scenes with multiple twists and turns all written in a smart ironic, sardonic tone with excellent dialogue to match. There’s multiple double , treble, quadruple crossings so you have no idea which colourful character to trust, not that I would dare to say that Bigtoria’s face!

Retailers:

It’s perhaps unfair to compare this to the McRae series but unfortunately I became very bored with the story. The characters weren’t strong enough to drive the story and in some ways they felt like really diluted, much less funny, versions of McRae and Steel. But there was always the writing (well, that's not true, the writing only started two chapters above this one). I fell victim to that most dreadful of things: peer pressure. Two friends were writing novels and I thought, 'why not? I could do that'. I have enjoyed a number of Stuart MacBride's books before; I enjoy his writing style, his dark sense of humour, twisty plots and excellent characters - The Dead of Winter is no different and I loved it.