‘Hot Potato’ by Joyce Holms

Published by Allison & Busby,
2002.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-0605-6 (HB)

On a hill-walking holiday in the beautiful Scottish Highlands, Fizz Fitzgerald and Tam Buchanan are witness to a horrific car crash. There is little they can do for the driver, except agree to accede to her dying wish to help her passenger, who she assures them is being pursued by the police who are trying to kill him. And so, Fizz and Tam find themselves on the run, in charge of a guy in his seventies with a halo of white fluffy curls and the demeanour of a saint.  The Beatific smile of their newly acquired friend is quickly explained, McKenzie is pie-eyed.

Encountering the boys in blue on two occasions, it is clear that they only want Scott McKenzie dead, and friendly chat is not on their  agenda.  For Fizz and Tam, their only hope of information is McKenzie, but he is extremely vague. Trying to establish how he came to be in Inverness, Buchanan asked, ‘What is the last thing you remember? Back in Edinburgh, were you drinking?’ ‘Veryl likely dear boy, said McKenzie with great dignity. No point in being sober if you don’t have to be.

Avoiding the police and seeking innocuous breakfast accommodation is not Buchanan’s bag, but he adapts surprisingly well to the situation, whereas Fizz, seems suddenly aware of all she has worked for. Tying to keep McKenzie sober is no mean feat, when turning ones back he is off to chat up the landlady for the cooking brandy. They attempt to back track his activities and encounter far more than they could ever have envisaged, For, as McKenzie recalls places and people, he cannot recall whether they are friends or the people chasing him, posing Fizz and Buchanan on the horns of dilemma.

McKenzie is a wonderful character of great charm, and all the low-down cunning of the drunk I sensed some difference in this book to the earlier books in the series and think that it is down to Fizz. Now that she is on the verge of becoming a fully-fledged solicitor, is she changing? She makes a change that unsettles Buchanan. Well, it unsettled me!  No of course I am not going to say what, you will have to read the book for yourself,

With tight plotting, and wonderful characterisation, this is a truly satisfying read. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
Earlier books in the series are Payment Deferred, Foreign Body, Bad Vibes, Thin Ice, Mr Big, Bitter End.

Joyce Holms was born and educated in Glasgow. The victim of a low boredom threshold, she has held a variety of jobs, from teaching window dressing and managing a hotel on the Isle of Arran to working for an Edinburgh detective agency and running a B&B in the Highlands. Married with two grown up children, she lives in Edinburgh and her interests include hill-walking and garden design.