Chris Brookmyre, another product of the Scottish crime school/production line, stood out from the crowd with a series of pitch black tales that revelled in the macabre doings of its villainous characters.
Tired, presumably, of churning out (high class and fun) pulp fiction, Brookmyre feels he has paid his dues and wants to produce something with more heft.
His latest book is an orthodox police procedural that takes his lead characters into the dark heart of Glasgow's drugs gangs.
Brookmyre is setting himself up for a series, apparently, so this first story is heavily laden with back story, character explanations, geographical descriptions and the sort of stuff that in films that is jammed in before the credits so you know who you're dealing with when the action proper starts.
And therein lies the flaw. The story itself - which sets grizzled detective Catherine McLeod and newbie private investigator Jasmine Sharp on two converging paths - fails to grip sufficiently to make all the back story baggage worthwhile.
Sharp's hunt for her uncle and McLeod's gang-busting zeal take an age to come to fruition and the pay-offs are too downbeat for the time we've spent in the protagonists' heads and homes.
It is wonderfully written and Brookmyre cannot curb his instinct for gallows humour - somewhere down the line this series could jump into life. But this isn't that book.
– From July 2011
