Cold Granite is the debut novel written by Stuart MacBride. It features Detective Sergeant Logan McRae (who is later nicknamed "Lazarus") as its central character, who works for

Grampian Police Grampian Police was, between 1975 and 2013 (replaced by Police Scotland), the territorial police force of the northeast region of Scotland, covering, from 1996, the council areas of Aberdeenshire, the Aberdeen City, and Moray (the former Gramp ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

, Scotland. Logan McRae went on to feature in a series of books which became a bestseller series for MacBride.

Plot

It is Logan McRae's first week back after being on sick leave for a year; courtesy of Angus Robertson (The Mastrick Monster) who carved him up with a knife. Someone is kidnapping children, murdering them and mutilating them afterwards. The local paper screams about police incompetence and is gunning for McRae's boss, Detective Inspector David Insch. McRae discovers that someone is leaking the stories to a journalist, Colin Miller, who inadvertently disrupts Grampian Polices' plans to apprehend the killer by revealing their plan to wait out in a secluded location which the killer thinks is safe. McRae discovers that Miller's source is none other than his ex-girlfriend, Isobel McAlister, the police pathologist, who is now living with Miller and tells him about her day to unwind. Meanwhile, the local council worker who removes all the dead animals from the roads (affectionately called "Roadkill") is found to have a dead girl in his tip and another dead girl is discovered on the local rubbish dump.

Reception

The book earned MacBride a Barry Award for Best First Novel. Matthew Lewin, writing in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

, described the book as "

Tartan Noir Tartan Noir is a form of crime fiction particular to Scotland and Scottish writers. William McIlvanney, who wrote three crime novels, the first being ''Laidlaw'' in 1977, is considered the father of the genre. Criticism William McIlvanney (whose o ...

" which is laced with gallows humour but that the author acBridejust can't pull off. He also said that the book left him with tears of boredom. Susan Manfield, writing in

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

, said that

References

{{Authority control 2005 British novels Novels set in Aberdeenshire Novels by Stuart MacBride 2005 debut novels HarperCollins books