A new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of 'Cold Granite', set to rival Ian Rankin.

It's summertime in the Granite city: the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and people are dying... It starts with Rosie Williams, a prostitute, stripped naked and beaten to death down by the docks – the heart of Aberdeen's red light district. For DS Logan McRae it's a bad start to another bad day. Only a few short months ago he was the golden boy of Grampian police. But one botched raid later he's palmed off on a DI everyone knows is a jinx, waiting for the axe to fall with all the other rejects in the 'Screw-up Squad'. Logan's not going to take it lying down. He's determined to escape DI Steel and her unconventional methods, and the best way to do that is to crack the case in double-quick time. But Rosie Williams won't be the only one making an unscheduled trip to the morgue. Across the city six people are burning to death in a petrol-soaked squat, the doors and windows screwed shut from the outside. And despite Logan's best efforts, it's not long before another prostitute turns up on the slab...Stuart MacBride's characteristic grittiness, gallows humour and lively characterization make this his second unputdownable novel, confirming his status as the rising star of crime fiction.

Stuart MacBride has scrubbed toilets offshore, flunked out of university, set up his own graphic design company, got dragged into the heady world of the internet, developed massive applications for the oil industry, drunk heaps of wine and created the perfect recipe for mushroom soup. He lives, just left of the back of beyond, in North-east Scotland, with his wife Fiona and enough potatoes to feed an army.