‘Blood on Old Stones’ by Alex Gray.

Published by Sphere,
12 March 2026. 
ISBN:  978-1-4087-2189-6 (HB)

DSI William Lorimer and his wife Maggie are visiting the Isle of Mull again.  It’s somewhere they love – the windswept coasts, the picturesque lochs, the wildlife, all combine to make it a magical place. But this time they are coming to attend the funeral of their friend Mary.  After the funeral they join friends and relatives at the wake. Here they meet Chrissie McPhail, the Tobermory postmistress, and Lorimer is surprised when she whispers to him that she needs to speak to him because something is not right….  She arranges to meet him the following morning at Leiter Cottage (where they have often stayed) to talk about Mary’s death. 

Lorimer and Maggie arrive at the Cottage as arranged, but the only sign of Chrissie is a warm kettle.  They check the rooms and then look outside, where Lorimer finds Chrissie lying in the garden.  He calls the police and, whilst awaiting their arrival, he looks closely at the scene and begins to suspect that it doesn’t look like a straightforward accident.  Then he is contacted by Culum, one of Mary’s sons, who informs him that her house has been burgled. 

And so, he and indeed Maggie, become involved in a police inquiry which spreads to both deaths.  As the investigation progresses, interesting information comes to light – Mary has left her house to the recently-arrived young wife of the local GP, leaving no explanation for her two sons, who are understandably bewildered. 

The plot cleverly drip-feeds information, suggesting various lines of inquiry.  The characters are neatly drawn, reflecting their backgrounds and their places in Tobermory society.  The setting itself is, as so often the case in these island places, an important part of the story, lending more than a background to the activities, but a strong sense of history and locality.  The fact that Lorimer and Maggie have visited often means that they do not stand out so much as the new officers brought into to handle the cases, helping the numerous outsiders to fit in a little bit more easily. The story itself unfolds in a tense but controlled way, as the police pick through the evidence to an unexpected conclusion. 

The 23rd book in this popular series, this will please regular readers.  For first-time readers it works, as a stand-alone, with the story providing the relevant background information about the Lorimers, their links to Tobermory and their relationship to other characters, and may well entice them into looking at previous stories.
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Reviewer: Jo Hesslewood
Books by this author:  The William Lorimer Series:  this currently comprises 23 novels of which the first 5 are:  Never Somewhere else; A Small Weeping:  Shadows of Sounds:  The Riverman.  Ebook:  The Bank Job.

Alex Gray was born 27 May 1950, in  Glasgow.  She studied English and Philosophy at Strathclyde University and worked for a period in the Department of Health & Social Security before training as an English teacher.  In 1976 she lived in Rhodesia for three months, during which time she got married, and she and her husband returned to Scotland. She continued teaching until the 1990s, when she gave the profession up and began to write full-time. Her novels are all set around Glasgow and featuring the character of Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer and his psychological profiler Solomon Brightman. She has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers’ Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing and is the co-founder of the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival. 

www.alex-gray.com/

Jo Hesslewood.  Crime fiction has been my favourite reading material since as a teenager I first spotted Agatha Christie on the library bookshelves.  For twenty-five years the commute to and from London provided plenty of reading time.  I am fortunate to live in Cambridge, where my local crime fiction book club, Crimecrackers, meets at Heffers Bookshop .  I enjoy attending crime fiction events and currently organise events for the Margery Allingham Society.