Stuart McBride - Cold Granite

reviewed by Malcolm Martland 9 April 2009
This is Scottish writer Stuart McBride’s first novel and I found it quite bizarrely entertaining but there is a lot unsaid in the reviews – Aberdeen based DS Logan McRae has been off work for a year following a savage attack by the Mastrick Monster – this put him in intensive care with multiple abdominal injuries – and he was resuscitated several times. Several of the desk sergeants were discussing his return from the dead give Logan a nickname after a humorous dialogue – “who was that chap in the bible that died and came back to life – Oh – you must mean Jesus? – No not him - Lazarus was his name! – or something like that – so Logan acquires Lazarus or Laz as his nickname – but Laz’s clinical history is not what this book is about although there is clearly scope for SM to write a prequel. No this is about disappearing children – some maliciously murdered, some unaccountable – and one found in the barn of a deranged council worker called Roadkill – his job is to collect dead animals from the roads – but he keeps them all stacked up in heaps at his farm – Yuck! The council sends a team in to clear the health hazard – but they come across the body of a child – one who had disappeared years before – it’s a gruesome scene – ant the Ice Queen misdiagnoses the cause of death as a beating – to be put right by ex-boy friend Laz who recognises this as injuries cause by a car – and Roadkill had just come along and cleared up the body as if it was a rat or a dog – charming! And Laz does actually find one a child alive – round at his Grans – not sinister but brownie points there for Laz from his cola-sweet sucking boss DI Inch.

The story continues with the killer(s) always one step ahead of the police thanks to leaks to the local press – through the Ice Queen who is now living with a persistent local journalist Colin Miller There are tales of council corruption, gangsters from down south – he means Edinburgh – not Brighton – people the likes of Malkie McClennan. Kneecapped bodies found in the sea – and more gore galore.

It is definitely a good read if you like gruesome detective novels – very much better than the genre of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs – wouldn’t be hard would it- but not a patch on fellow Scottish novelists Ian Rankin and Val McDermid.