Until this one, Brookmyre's manic crime capers have been dripping with humour, satire, bad taste, wacky incidents and characters and an awful lot of dead bodies. They are unique and totally addictive. Now he has produced a Glaswegian noir, a gritty, conventional crime tale of drug dealers and dodgy policemen with a very likeable, inexperienced P.I. Jasmine and a fast-paced plot involving a missing baby and his parents many years ago. It is unusual for Brookmyre but as a crime novel it is superb.
Shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2012.
The murder of a small-time Scottish hoodlum makes big trouble for two Glasgow detectives in a thriller that'll ';wake up crime fiction readers everywhere' (Val McDermid). When a neighborhood heroin dealer turns up dead one fine morning in Scotland, no one is too surprised. Sleeping with a major drug trafficker's girlfriend can bring around plenty of enemies. It's no wonder that Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has plenty of early leads. If only out-of-work actress Jasmine Sharp could get a lead. With a career in nosedive, she's learning the ropes at her uncle Jim's PI business. But when Jim goes missing, Sharp is thrown into the deep end. To find him she'll have to solve his most recent caseand do it solo. Following the trail quickly leads Sharp into the crosshairs of an unknown assailantand headed down the same road as McLeod. When their investigations become intertwined, ';Glasgow's mean streets come alive... [in] one of the best novels of the year' (John Lutz, New York Timesbestselling and Edgar awardwinning author). ';[For] fans of Lynda La Plante'sPrime Suspectseries and HBO'sThe Wire.' Library Journal ';Tough Scottish humor... leavened with Elmore Leonard-like flourishes... finely controlled yet exuberant mayhem.' The Christian Science Monitor
