I’m not a big reader of crime fiction – especially those murder mystery type affairs where an enigmatic cop find his way through a labyrinth of information to arrest the psychopath – that’s too much like my day job.

However – someone bought my a hardback of Broken Skin for my birthday last year, and I finally got round to reading it.

Broken Skin tells the story of Logan McRae, a detective sergeant in Aberdeen as he investigates a number of seemingly unlinked incidents. A murder in the local BDSM community, a rapist football star and an 8 year old murderer are all on the loose in the Scottish city.

As it happens – the story is quite taut with a twist or two along the way. The dialogue funny and hard hitting. The crimes are fairly gruesome but the book doesn’t spill over into a gore-fest, and concentrates largely on the characters round the CID in Aberdeen as the hunt down the criminals.

If you are into crime thrillers – then this one can be recommended. You might as well get in a read it, because I fully expect that this (and the character – Logan ‘Lazarus’ McRae) will be turned into a TV cop (a la Rebus or Taggart).