Stuart MacBride

The new Logan McRae thriller set in gritty Aberdeen, from the bestselling author of Cold Granite and Flesh House.It's summer in the Granite City, but even the sunshine can't improve the mood at Grampian Police Headquarters.Aberdeen's growing Polish community is under attack from a serial offender who leaves mutilated victims to be discovered on building sites – eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is assigned to the investigation, codenamed Operation Oedipus, but with the victims too scared to talk, it's going nowhere fast.When the next victim turns out to be not a newly arrived eastern european, but Simon McLeod, owner of the Turf n' Track bookies, Logan suddenly finds himself caught up in a world of drug wars, prostitution rings and gun-running courtesy of Aberdeen's oldest and most vicious crime lord.

A new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of Cold Granite and Dying Light, set in gritty Aberdeen.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 turn 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...

Glasgow, not too far in the future. A new punishment has been devised for the perpetrators of serious crimes – one that not only reduces the prison population but also benefits society at large. The process is known as halfheading: the offender's lower jaw is removed and they are lobotomized. They are then put to work as cleaners in municipal areas like hospitals, where they serve as a warning to all that crime doesn't pay.But for one halfhead, it seems the lobotomy hasn't quite succeeded. Six years after her surgery, Dr Fiona Westfield 'wakes up' surrounded by the butchered remains of a man she has just brutally killed. As her mind slowly begins to return, she sets out on a quest for vengeance.William Hunter, Assistant Section Director of the 'Network' – a military wing of the police – attends the crime scene left behind by the newly awakened halfhead. Sherman House is a run-down concrete housing development full of undesirables and Hunter and his team quickly find themselves in a firefight with the locals.With the help of old comrades and a new friend in the form of prickly but attractive Detective Sergeant Josephine Cameron, Will gets on the trail of the killer. But before long the investigation leads back to a terrible tragedy in his own past, as well as to a terrifying conspiracy to sow violence and misery among Glasgow's most vulnerable citizens.

WINNER OF THE CWA SHORT STORY DAGGER In Bloody Scotland a selection of Scotland's best crime writers use the sinister side of the country's built heritage in stories that are by turns gripping, chilling and redemptive. Stellar contributors Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Gordon Brown, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride explore the thrilling potential of Scotland's iconic sites and structures. From murder in an ancient broch and a macabre tale of revenge among the furious clamour of an eighteenth century mill, to a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and a rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin, this collection uncovers the intimate - and deadly - connections between people and places. Prepare for a dangerous journey into the dark shadows of our nation's buildings - where passion, fury, desire and death collide.

From the No. 1 bestselling author of Shatter the Bones and Birthdays for the Dead, a new crime thriller featuring DS Logan McRae. The first body is chained to a stake: strangled, and stabbed, with a burning tyre around its neck. But is this a gangland execution or something much darker? Someone's leaving little knots of bones outside Detective Inspector Logan McRae's house, but he's got more pressing things to worry about. Rival drug gangs are fighting over product and territory; two teenage lovers are missing; someone's crippling Asian immigrants; and Logan's been lumbered with an ambitious new Detective Sergeant, a mountain of paperwork, and the unwelcome attention of his superiors and the local crime boss. When another body turns up, it looks as if the similarities between these murders and the plot of a bestselling novel are more than just a coincidence. And perhaps those little knots of bones are more important than they look...

Detective Chief Inspector Roberta Steel got caught fitting up Jack Wallace - that's why they demoted her and quashed his sentence. Now he's back on the streets and women are being attacked again. Wallace has to be responsible, but if Detective Sergeant Steel goes anywhere near him, his lawyers will get her thrown off the force for good. The Powers That Be won't listen to her, not after what happened last time. According to them, she's got more than enough ongoing cases to keep her busy. Perhaps she could try solving a few instead of harassing an innocent man? Steel knows Wallace is guilty. And the longer he gets away with it, the more women will suffer. The question is: how much is she willing to sacrifice to stop him?

Eight years ago, the Inside Man abducted and killed four women. He left another three in critical condition, their stomachs slit open and a plastic doll stitched inside. Then he disappeared. Until now. Ash Henderson was a Detective Inspector on the initial investigation. Things haven't exactly gone well since: his family has been destroyed, his career is in tatters, and one of Oldcastle's most vicious criminals is making sure he spends the rest of his life in prison. But Dr Alice McDonald has other ideas. When a nurse turns up dead on waste ground behind Blackwall Hill with a doll stitched into her innards, Alice convinces one of the investigating teams to get Ash released and working the case. He's out for as long as he's useful. And if he's out, he can get revenge.

At long last you are truly back with us... Zev Hunter was an elite warrior, a dark-blood dealer of death to rogue Lycans who preyed on mankind. He was a loner, never given to personal attachments, and damned fierce at his job. But Zev begins to question his past and his purpose when he awakens in the darkness of the sacred cave of warriors -- and is soothed back to consciousness by the sensuously familiar voice of one woman, the woman who has haunted his fantasies for centuries. She was Branislava, member of the Dragonseeker clan… Mother Earth called the ancients to witness your rebirth… For this half-mage, half-Carpathian temptress, the ritual of awakening Zev to the council of warriors was the only way to save him. Locked away for his own protection, the time has now come for his rebirth, for his blood to stir with that of the ancient warriors before him. He has been assured by Branislava that their fates are entwined, that their spirits are woven together for eternity and that his new purpose in life is beyond imagining. Now, with a blood-sworn vow of honor, mercy and endurance, and under the influence of a siren as bewitching as Branislava, Zev begins to wonder what his purpose is, what it means for the future of the Carpathians and what it is about his rebirth that he has to fear…

Welcome to the Misfit Mob. It's where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can't get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it's his job to find out which museum it's been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting. O Division's Major Investigation Teams already have more cases than they can cope with, so, against everyone's better judgment, the Misfit Mob are just going to have to manage this one on their own. No one expects them to succeed, but right now they're the only thing standing between the killer's victims and a slow, lingering death. The question is, can they prove everyone wrong before he strikes again?

They say 'small is beautiful', but as Stuart MacBride demonstrates in these four tales, it can also be dark, violent, disturbing, and sometimes really quite rude. So pour yourself a wee dram, curl up on the sofa and enjoy DS Logan McRae and his sometime boss, friend, mother substitute, and nemesis, DCI Steel at their best. Here you'll find Logan's week from hell; Steel's own personal nightmare before Christmas; an explosive shootout on a remote Scottish island; and the ultimate test of their relationship...

Logan McRae's personal history is hardly squeaky clean, but now that he works for Professional Standards he's policing his fellow officers. When Detective Inspector Bell turns up dead in the driver's seat of a crashed car it's a shock to everyone. Because Bell died two years ago, they buried him. Or they thought they did. As an investigation is launched into Bell's stabbing, Logan digs into his past. Where has he been all this time? Why did he disappear? And what's so important that he felt the need to come back from the dead?

One mistake can cost you everything...When you catch a twisted killer there should be a reward, right? What Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae gets instead is a 'development opportunity' out in the depths of rural Aberdeenshire. Welcome to divisional policing - catching drug dealers, shop lifters, vandals and the odd escaped farm animal. Then a little girl's body washes up just outside the sleepy town of Banff, kicking off a massive manhunt. The Major Investigation Team is up from Aberdeen, wanting answers, and they don't care who they trample over to get them. Logan's got enough on his plate keeping B Division together, but DCI Steel wants him back on her team. As his old colleagues stomp around the countryside, burning bridges, Logan gets dragged deeper and deeper into the investigation. One thing's clear: there are dangerous predators lurking in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, and not everyone's going to get out of this alive...

Alison and Jenny McGregor, Aberdeen's own mother-daughter singing sensation, are through to the semi-finals of TV smash-hit Britain's Next Big Star. They've got millions of YouTube hits, everyone loves them-- until their reality-TV dream turns into a real-life nightmare. The ransom demand appears in all the papers, on the TV, and the Internet, telling the nation to dig deep if they want to keep Alison and Jenny alive.

A new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of Cold Granite, Dying Light and Broken Skin, set in gritty Aberdeen.Aberdeen is panicking. It's been eighteen years since Grampian Police caught the Flesher – the notorious serial killer who butchered people all over the UK – and seven years since he was released from Peterhead prison, his conviction overturned on appeal. But when a container full of joints of human meat turns up at Aberdeen Harbour, it kicks off the largest man hunt in Aberdeen's history. Ken Wiseman is on the run and looking for revenge. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is lumbered with the unenviable task of babysitting Chief Constable Mark Faulds from Birmingham – one of the original investigation team – and trying to keep DI Insch from throwing his career away in his obsessive quest to see Wiseman behind bars before he kills again. When members of the team that put Wiseman away in 1990 start going missing, Logan knows that things aren't as straightforward as everyone thinks. More and more human meat is turning up in the food chain. Twenty years of secrets and lies are being dragged into the light. And the only thing that's certain is Aberdeen will never be the same again.

The debut thriller from a bright new Scottish talent set to rival Ian Rankin.It's DS Logan McRae's first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn't get much worse. Four-year-old David Reid's body is discovered in a ditch, strangled, mutilated and a long time dead. There's a killer stalking the Granite City and the local media are baying for blood.If that wasn't enough, Logan also has to contend with a new boss, DI Insch, who doesn't suffer fools gladly and thinks everyone's a fool, and his own ex-girlfriend, the beautiful but chilly Isobel MacAlister, who also happens to be the chief pathologist. The only good news is WPC 'Ball Breaker' Watson, Logan's new guardian angel.The dead are piling up in the morgue almost as fast as the snow on the streets, and Logan knows time is running out. More children are going missing. More are going to die. If Logan isn't careful, he's going to end up joining them.Set in Aberdeen, where the rainy season lasts all year, criminal gangs vie for supremacy on the streets and the oil industry brings an influx of wealth and vice, this is a gritty, powerful and page-turning debut thriller by a writer with a wonderfully observant eye and a characteristically Scottish sense of gallows humour.