Dying Light

by Stuart MacBride
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Detective Sergeant Logan McRae who has up until now been Aberdeen's police hero is in big trouble. A colleague has been seriously injured in a raid planned and conducted by McRae. He is moved to another unit, one infamously known as the "F**k up"-squad.

Despite it being summer and sunny Aberdeen is showing itself from its darkest side. Someone screws the doors and windows of a building shut before setting it on fire. Five young people and an infant are trapped inside and burned to death. In another part of town a prostitute, Rosie Williams, is found naked and beaten to death.

Worrying about his future and under the guidance of a new superior he doesn't trust McRae has to prove his competence and solve the murder of Rosie Williams. Despite his best efforts it's not long before another prostitute is found dead. And at the same time his old boss is involving him in the investigation of the arson.

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This book is most of all a procedural. It depicts how police work is conducted by teams and how procedures must be followed to allow all members of the team to convey and receive information on progress made. But it is also about the lives of police officers who mostly socialise with other police officers and who are forced to have frequent contact with Aberdeen's criminals and beaten. About lives where work has to be given priority, often at the expence of a functional personal life. It is grey, it is brutal, and at times it is infuriatingly slow.

What makes this book good, in my opinion, are the same things that sometimes annoy me. Logan McRae is emotional and impulsive. It is easy to identify with his thoughts and worries. But McRae often allows these worries to consume him and loses his focus. As a reader it irritates me when he misses information that would have lead him closer to solving the case. He will also jump to conclusions and launch into actions that only put him deeper into trouble. But these characteristics are also what makes him believable and his basic nature of compassion and dedication to justice is what makes me like him and root for him.

On the basis of this, and because of the humour hidden among all the darkness I would recommend this book. However, it is truly brutal and contains some really horrific descriptions and scenes that you have to able to tolerate.

Stuart MacBride has written the following novels:

Featuring DS Logan McRae in Aberdeen, Scotland:
Cold Granite (2005)
Dying Light (2006)
Broken Skin (2007)
also published as Bloodshot
Flesh House (2008)

Non-series:
Sawbones (2008)