ISBN:
978-1-84744-567-4
An explosion in the countryside near Glasgow draws Detective Superintendent
William Lorimer into contact with MI6 over a threat to the Commonwealth Games,
due to take place in 2014. But he has
other worries: the behaviour of his beautiful, red-haired teenage-sweetheart
whose husband has died on his watch, and the death of a young black woman
marked with a strange Celtic tattoo ...
This novel opens with a
lyrical description of the Scottish countryside in spring, and, in keeping with
the book’s title, Gray plays with the idea of birds throughout. DS Lorimer and his wife Maggie have worked
their way through difficulties to being people you enjoy spending time with: a
restful older couple, each dedicated to work – I enjoyed the glimpes of
Maggie’s classroom world. Because his
involvement with the case of the dead husband means Lorimer can’t be in charge,
you see more of his emotional side, as well as the reactions of Maggie, to the
cuckoo in their nest. The fear and
bewilderment of Asa, the African girl kidnapped from her village, draws you
into her story too, and you’re kept wondering how she’s going to mesh into the
plot overall. Among the police, we follow
both DI Wilson and his new recruit daughter Kirsty investigating the murders,
while Lorimer himself focuses on the terrorist threat. The plot moves quickly between strands, the
Glasgow setting is a real presence in the book, and the euphoria and pride in
the crucial Commonwealth Games plausibly evoked – it must have felt strange
writing a book set just in the future in this way! However the expected influx of visitors links
the city to the wider world in an unexpected and sinister way ... Although this
is well through the Lorimer series, it reads as a stand-alone, and wouldn’t
spoil earlier books, so the reader can enjoy it, then go back.
A keep-you-reading police
procedural with strong emotional involvement in the characters. Highly recommended.
-------
Reviewer: Marsali
Taylor
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www.alex-gray.com/
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