Blind Eye
Authors: Stuart MacBride
Tags: #McRae, #Police, #Mystery & Detective, #Polish people, #Detective and mystery stories, #Crime, #Fiction, #Logan (Fictitious character), #Police Procedural
| Blind Eye | |
| Logan McRae [5] | |
| Stuart MacBride | |
| HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (2009) | |
| Tags: | Fiction, Mystery Detective, Police Procedural, Police, Detective and Mystery Stories, Crime, McRae; Logan (Fictitious character), Polish people Fictionttt Mystery Detectivettt Police Proceduralttt Policettt Detective and Mystery Storiesttt Crimettt McRae; Logan (Fictitious character)ttt Polish peoplettt |
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Det. Sgt. Logan McRae, who's still recovering from the bloody events of 2008's
Flesh
, investigates a series of brutal attacks on Polish immigrants in MacBride's excellent fifth novel to feature the Aberdeen, Scotland, cop. A local xenophobe, bitter about the influx of Polish workers, appears to be the culprit, but when one of the city's local crime bosses is assaulted, McRae begins to wonder if the violence is the result of a brewing turf war between Scottish crime figures and encroaching Eastern European thugs. Meanwhile, McRae and foul-mouthed Det. Insp. Roberta Steele are stuck babysitting Rory Simpson, a pedophile who becomes an inadvertent—but key—witness. MacBride's liberal use of humor, especially in the often slapstick rapport between McRae and the crusty Steel, never detracts from the action. A lesser writer would have fumbled such a complexly layered plot, but MacBride is in his element the more dark and twisted the story—and characters—become.
(Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
'Hard-hitting prose with a bone-dry humour and characters you can genuinely believe in, Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae series of novels are a real treat.' Simon Kernick 'Cracking dialogue ! a standout crime novel' Metro 'Makes Ian Rankin's noir seem blanc' Observer Praise for Stuart MacBride: 'Fierce, unflinching and shot through with the blackest of humour; this is crime fiction of the highest order.' 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 'Ferocious and funny' Val McDermid '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 'Grim, gritty and great fun' Daily Sport 'Riveting and gruesome' Daily Telegraph 'Stuart MacBride goes straight for the jugular with a tight, thrilling novel' Glasgow Herald 'Another brilliant, riveting police procedural. I'm green with envy!' R D Wingfield 'This intelligent, exciting police procedural should make the leading writers of the genre start looking over their shoulders' Sunday Telegraph 'An impressive debut ! an edge-of-your-seat page-turner' Publishers Weekly 'A gritty, roller-coaster, in-your-face thriller' Aberdeen Press and Journal '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 'Compelling reading' Telegraph '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
STUART MACBRIDE
Blind Eye
For Scott and Christopher
Table of Contents
Without Whom ...
See How They Run...
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Three Days Later
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Za Nasza I Wasza Wolnosc [FOR OUR FREEDOM AND YOURS]
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Six Days Later
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Aftermath
I
II
III
By Stuart MacBride
Copyright
About the Publisher
Without Whom ...
In writing this book I
will
have got some stuff wrong. Sometimes it's on purpose, because I think it works better for the story, other times ... well, nobody's perfect are they? But anything I did get right is down to the following people:
Superintendent Jim Bilsland and everyone at Grampian Police who helped, but wanted to remain anonymous; Andrzej Jastrzebski from the Old Warsaw Bakery; Mark 'Rentboy' McHardy and Michelle Brady; Father Keith Herrera; Eryk Grasela of Crazy Tours, Krakow; Przemyslaw Biernat, who fixed a lot of my Polish; Antoni Cybulski for teaching me to swear; and the ever wonderful Ishbel Gall who knows everything there is to know about death, and isn't afraid to share. Thanks guys.
I also want to thank my agent Phil Patterson and everyone at Marjacq; my editorial ninja Sarah Hodgson (who had to put up with an awful lot to get this book finished); Jane Johnson and the rest of the team at HarperCollins; James Oswald and Allan Guthrie for their input; Hilary Brander, who appears as a character in this book because she and her husband donated a vast sum of money to Grampian Police's Diced Cap Charity (www.dicedcap.org); everyone at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, especially the nurses and support staff in the A&E Ward and Ward 49 who looked after me during my little 'health scare'; and Fiona and Grendel for keeping me supplied with dead rodents and cups of tea.
Oh, and the next book's getting set in January/February - sod the tourist board, writing about all this sunshine's making me queasy.
See How They Run...
1
Waiting was the worst bit: hunkered back against the wall, eyes squinting in the setting sun, waiting for the nod. A disused business unit in Torry - not exactly the most affluent area of Aberdeen - downwind of a fish factory, and a collection of huge yellow bins overflowing with heads, bones and innards that festered in the hot June evening.
Half a dozen armed police officers - three teams of two, all dressed in black, sweating and trying not to breathe through their noses - listened for sounds of movement over the raucous screams of Jurassic-Park seagulls.
Nothing.
A big man, nose and mouth covered by a black scarf, held up a hand. The firearms officers tensed.
And three, two, one...
BOOM - the handheld battering ram smashed into the lock and the door exploded inwards in a shower of wooden splinters.
'GO! GO! GO!'
Into a gloomy corridor: grey walls, grubby blue carpet tiles.
Team One took the workshop at the back, Team Two took the front offices, and both members of Team Three hammered up the stairs. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae slithered to a halt at the top: there was a dust-encrusted desk upended on the landing; a dead pot plant; dark rectangles on the walls where pictures used to hang; four open doors. 'Clear.'
PC Guthrie - the other half of Team Three - crept over to the nearest doorway, MP5 machine pistol at the ready, and peered inside. 'Clear.' He backed up and tried the next one in line. 'This is such a waste of time. How many of these things have we done this week?'
'Just keep your eyes open.'
'There's no bugger here,' he said, stepping over the threshold, 'it's a complete--'
His head snapped backwards - a spray of blood erupting from his nose. Guthrie hit the floor hard, helmet bouncing off the grimy carpet tiles. There was a harsh CRACK as his Heckler & Koch went off, tearing a hole through the plasterboard at waist height.