Broken Skin

The third in the bestselling Logan McRae series, set in gritty Aberdeen, laced with dark humour. In the pale grey light of a chilly February, Aberdeen is not at its best! There’s a rapist prowling the city’s cold granite streets, leaving a string of tortured women behind. But while DS Logan McRae’s girlfriend is out acting as bait, he’s dealing with the blood-drenched body of an unidentified male, dumped outside Accident and Emergency. When a stash of explicit films turns up, all featuring the victim, it looks as if someone in the local bondage community has developed a taste for violent death, and Logan gets dragged into the twilight world of pornographers, sex-shops and S&M. To make matters worse, when they finally arrest the Granite City Rapist, Grampian Police are forced by the courts to let him go: Aberdeen Football Club’s star striker has an alibi for every attack. Could they really have got it so badly wrong? Logan thinks so, but the trick will be getting anyone to listen before the real rapist strikes again. Especially as his girlfriend, PC Jackie ‘Ball Breaker’ Watson, is convinced the footballer is guilty and she’s hell-bent on a conviction at any cost!

Reviews of Broken Skin

'Fierce, unflinching and shot through with the blackest of humour; this is crime fiction of the highest order by a writer whose dark star is most definitely on the rise' Mark Billingham 'If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident, strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then look no further' Reginald Hill 'The novel rattles along like a bolting horse and the dialogue crackles like a firework display ! DI Steel should be declared a national treasure' Andrew Taylor, Spectator 'Compelling reading' Telegraph 'Grim, gritty and great fun' Daily Sport 'This is Ian Rankin on Speed ! the humour is black, the violence is apalling, the language is, well, realistic, the entertainment is unflagging. I hunger for the earlier novels ' Adelaide Review 'A gritty, roller-coaster, in-your-face thriller' Aberdeen Press and Journal Praise for Cold Granite: 'Ferocious and funny, this is Tartan Noir at its best ' Val McDermid 'A riveting and gruesome debut' Telegraph 'Stuart MacBride goes straight for the jugular with a tight, thrilling novel' Glasgow Herald 'Gripping' Daily Mirror 'An impressive debut ! an edge-of-your-seat page-turner' Publishers Weekly 'A cracking new writer on the crime scene who hooks you from the first page and never lets you go. The action is ferocious and the pace unrelenting' Northern Echo