Close to the Bone by Stuart MacBride

Published in the UK in January 2013; published by HarperCollins on May 14, 2013 

The connection between a body that has been wedged into a tire and set ablaze and a movie called Witchfire being filmed in Aberdeen isn't immediately apparent to Acting Detective Inpector Logan McRae, although the reader knows that the connection must exist or Stuart MacBride wouldn't have included both events in the novel's opening pages. In another apparently unrelated incident, two eighteen-year-olds have gone missing, and while Logan assumes they are lovers who ran away together, his boss makes him investigate to placate the girl's bothersome parents. The reader soon learns that the girl is a big fan of "Harry Bloody Potter, Twilight, and that stupid Witchfire book." Then there are the neighborhood pranksters leaving chicken bones at Logan's front door ... or so he assumes.

About a third of the story has passed before the connections become reasonably clear. The seasoned reader will expect more deaths to follow and will not be disappointed. This is only a wee bit of a whodunit, but the plot does take a surprising twist at the end that will satisfy whodunit fans. Not everything is as it seems, but the various storylines come together in the end. No loose ends are left to dangle.

In a pleasant departure from most police procedurals (and from earlier novels in the McRae series), MacBride doesn't take his characters or his story too seriously. Humor permeates the novel and the tone is nearly always light-hearted despite the serial killings. Logan is often carrying on multiple conversations at once, talking on the phone at the same time he's speaking to investigators at a crime scene, with amusing results. A thug who "looks like someone took a burning cheese grater to his face" comes to Logan's door and punches him in the nose, but the Grampian police not only take their time finding the thug, they don't have much interest in looking for him. Logan's oversexed boss is unreasonably demanding and keen on taking credit for Logan's work. A new detective sergeant named Gertrude Chalmers drives him crazy with her cheery gung-ho attitude and bad driving. A crime boss wants to make Logan the administrator of his will, leaving Logan the task of parceling out his criminal empire. Too many women are telling Logan what to do, one of whom can't even speak. It's no wonder Logan always feels stressed.

Sometimes the characters are slightly over-the-top, but not so far over that I stopped laughing at them. MacBride takes his time developing the plot and the characters, but the pace is never slow. Minor characters have the distinct personalities you'd expect from series regulars, and the beleaguered Logan is easy to like. The novel stands well on its own; it isn't necessary to read the earlier books in the series to get the full flavor of this one.

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