No Less The Devil: The unmissable new thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Logan McRae series

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A homeless man is found brutally murdered in a dilapidated cottage in the woods outside Oldcastle. The words "Help Me" written in blood on a nearby wall link the crime to a gruesome series of murders committed a couple of years previously by a killer dubbed "the Bloodsmith" by the baying press.

With the case going nowhere the investigating team are restructured and DS Lucy McVeigh and her partner DC Duncan "The Dunk" Fraser are given the task of reviewing the victims and the murder scenes in the hope that someone will remember something that will help them close a case that has ground to a halt after seventeen months. It’s 17 months since The Bloodsmith killed his first victim, and the police are no nearer to catching him. Operation Maypole has run out of clues, the public have lost faith in them, the media are giving them a hammering, and The Top Brass are demanding answers. One thing that does irritate me about MacBride's work however, is the incessant radio dialogue everytime a character is in a car. It's pointless and detracts from the pace of the plot. Right from the very beginning Stuart MacBride yanks you into the intriguing storyline and keeps you gripped in the icy hands of a tense, fast paced and unpredictable plot. It’s a very clever combination of excellent humour (I laugh out loud, titter and snort my way through the blood and gore!) and a darkly enigmatic puzzling mystery with an investigation that seems hindered at every turn. OK . . .' Edward raised his eyebrows at Bigtoria. 'So we've no mobile signal, the Airwaves are shagged, and the landlines are down. We're completely cut off, aren't we.' In a village populated with sex-offenders, murderers, and the general dregs of the criminal justice system.

You’d think that things wouldn’t have changed all that much for writers. Yes, we can’t get out to do events at festivals and libraries and bookshops anymore, but we’re mostly homebodies anyway, so what is there to whinge about? This is just business-as-usual. Only it really hasn’t been. Have you ever read a book and all is going well... then something happens and you have to re-read it because it is THAT surreal and random and off at a tangent that you think "surely not"? Introducing a truly unforgettable, surprising and original new detective, D.S. Lucy McVeigh. The ambitious new crime novel from number one Sunday Times bestselling author Stuart MacBride. But there was always the writing (well, that's not true, the writing only started two chapters above this one). I fell victim to that most dreadful of things: peer pressure. Two friends were writing novels and I thought, 'why not? I could do that'.

My questions weren't answered as we jumped from reality to fantasy to hallucination to the bizarre, to weird. I have no idea what happened or what ( or who) was real. I view Dunk as the alter ego of the author. MacBride is laughing at himself. Not just comedy relief, but a statement of where he fits into this cultural environment—-fiction based on reality. Dunk is constantly complaining about writers who don’t use punctuation properly in their reports and, at one point, likens himself Dr. Watson following Holmes (Lucy)—in other words, a writer, telling a story about Lucy’s investigative prowess. The storyline is unique and intriguing and I was instantly drawn in. To be honest, I've never before read anything quite like this.

This novel takes the reader into some uncomfortable reading and spins the reader sideways with all the twists and turns. No spoilers but it will mess with you head! A really enjoyable read, very dark in many places. And Scottish - so I found myself reading it in a Scottish accent. This is a difficult review to write. Throughout most of the story, I felt it was a five-star read, then came the ending, which disappointed me—it didn’t feel right—and so I lowered my internal rating system to four stars. Then waited a while to ensure I got it right.

A policeman is stranded in a town full of ex-convicts in the darkly entertaining new crime novel from number one Sunday Times bestselling author Stuart MacBride. DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of No Less the Devil by Stuart MacBride for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.However, at around 80%, someone captured Stuart McBride - probably aliens using posh umbrellas because they went to a top class school. One of the eleven year olds from the school, who had of course been brainwashed, was asked to finish the story in Stuart's absence, and so began the fantasy that was the final 20% of the book. There were times when it was a 3, and also times when it was a 5+++ so in the end I've plumped for a 4. They leave Aberdeen and have the apparently straight forward task of transporting an ageing and dying prisoner, the notorious Mark Bishop, from HMP Grampian to live out his final days at Glenfarach. The weather is atrocious but they manage to make it to what looks like a picturesque place, but take a closer look and you might notice the huge number of CCTV cameras, that all the residents are tagged, and a strict curfew of 9pm is enforced. Yes, Glenfarach is home to ex-prisoners who have served their time, but whose release into the community is problematic, so you have a concentration of brutal, violent, hardened criminals, paedophiles, sexual offenders, etc.. After dropping off Bishop into the care of DS Erin Farrow, they are forced amidst worsening weather conditions to return after a resident is discovered murdered, having been tortured to death in his home, and this will not be the only death. Some reviewers have complained that MacBride is only recycling his Logan McRae series by changing the character names. Yes, Reekie is rather a close match for McRae, but Bigtoria is not at all like McRae’s nemesis DI Roberta Steele—other than the fact that both are high-ranking female officers. There is the comedy, true, which comes mainly at the expense of placing Reekie in untenable situations. And this is primarily why I can only give THE DEAD OF WINTER four stars. I prefer the edgy directions that MacBride has been exploring in his latest novels, which are not just comedy cop sagas. They provide comedy plus social commentary. The social commentary is missing here.

I am now hoping for a Study Notes guide to accompany No Less The Devil so that I have a smidgeon of a chance of understanding what on earth actually happened in the endThis is a real gem of a novel, and in my opinion, Stuart Macbride’s best for many years, if you like gritty, dark, Scottish crime fiction with a dose of really dark humor thrown in then you need to rush down to the bookshop, and buy The Dead Of Winter, you won’t be disappointed.