Book Review: The Blood Road, by Stuart MacBride

Available in bookshops nationwide. 

This is the first Stuart MacBride book I’ve read, although I have several of his older books waiting their turn in my bookcase.

The story centres on detective inspector Bell, who supposedly committed suicide by setting fire to his caravan two years earlier. When he turns up dead in the driver’s seat of a crashed car, questions start being asked – especially when it’s discovered he was stabbed before the car crashed.

Logan McRae is now working for the Professional Standards division of the police, meaning most officers don’t want anything to do with him. He needs to find out where Bell has been since he was thought dead, and who stabbed him. Why did he disappear – and more importantly, what made him return from the dead?

Deaths start piling up as Logan works tirelessly to discover Bell’s secrets. If it wasn’t his body in the caravan, whose was it – and was Bell responsible for his death?

That’s only one of the storylines weaving their way through The Blood Road. Alongside this there are a number of missing children and rumours start flying about them being stolen to order for something called the livestock market. Witnesses aren’t telling the truth and Logan also has to deal with a young police officer who goes off on her own, seemingly reluctant to share any leads she has with her superiors.

Logan has a lot to do with the parents of the missing children, one of which is hiding her own secret, a secret that could put her life and the life of many others in extreme danger.

This book took me a few pages before I really got engrossed in it, but that may be down to the fact I had to keep looking up some of the words MacBride uses that may only be familiar to the Scots! It kept me guessing until close to the end, the mark of a good thriller, and as soon as I finished it I started on one of his earlier books, which showed how much I enjoyed it. (That and the fact he has cats, which instantly made me like him!)

Reviewed by Faye Lougher

The Blood Road
by Stuart McBride
Published by HarperCollins
ISBN 9780008208240

Book Review: The Quaker, by Liam McIlvanney

Available in bookshops nationwide. 

Three women are murdered some weeks and months apart. DI Duncan McCormack is put in charge of why the murders haven’t been solved and why the murder squad haven’t managed to find the killer, getting him off the streets. There is fear amongst women as to where and who the killer will strike next.

McCormack is bought down from the Highlands in Scotland to Glasgow to join the investigation. He finds shoddy police work with nothing linking to anybody or where the murderer could have come from. The killer is nicknamed ‘The Quaker’ because of third hand memories of a man dressed in a suit, with a regimental tie and a religious pin on the lapel of his suit.

Who is The Quaker? Is he part of an organised crime syndicate or is he part of a network with a member of that syndicate inside the police force?

This is a ripper of a story with hardly a page where some new information isn’t imparted to the reader building up the profile of the killer. I found it difficult to put down the book at times but sleep is one of the necessary parts of life, so I was often waiting for another “spare” moment to pick up where I had left the off. The ending is superb.

Reviewed by Christine Frayling

The Quaker
by Liam McIlvanney
Published by HarperCollins NZ
ISBN 9780008259921