All That's Dead: The new Logan McRae crime thriller from the No.1 bestselling author (Logan McRae, Book 12)

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In the meantime, Scotland is facing the kind of political nightmare that parallels our contemporary politics of Brexit, with a deadly battle between those who support the union between England and Scotland and the extreme Alt-Nats, intent on a independent nation, by whatever means necessary, as they create a poisonous climate of fear with gruesome and brutal murders. I’m delighted to resume my membership of the Logan McRae fan club, and am happily looking forward to his next outing now.

As well as reading the book, I listened to an audio recording (which I paid for myself) narrated by Steve Worsley.It managed to bring Stuart MacBride’s humour and beautiful writing to life like I wouldn’t be able to do it myself by simply reading. However, it’s good to see that in my absence he’s found himself a nice girlfriend and a bit of domestic happiness. It should be a simple job but DI King is investigating the disappearance of staunch and combative anti independence campaigner Professor Nicholas Wilson. Graphic, grisly, but strangely enchanting, MacBride weaves his web entangling the reader in a desperate chase to catch an elusive and deadly chameleon. Aberdeen based anti independence campaigner Professor Wilson has gone missing, with only bloodstains in his kitchen to indicate that something sinister has occurred.

But that is just window-dressing for the real treasures in this novel: the wonderful writing and the amazing characters. but they all seemed to get in each others way desperately trying to find a kidnapped Unionist Professor. We all know the deviousness that can lie at the heart of a beardy crime writing genius from Scotland. It may just be that I’ve been away from him for a while but I felt he’d pulled the recurring characters back a little from the extreme caricaturing that lost me eventually in the earlier books.All That's Dead is the twelfth book in the DI Logan McRae series and although most series' would be running out of steam at this point, this is as fresh and captivating as the first ones.

He's anticipating a gentle re-introduction to work but the disappearance of a vocal, acerbic anti-independence campaigner, Professor Wilson thwarts this. The fact that we knew who the villain was almost halfway through the book killed some of the suspense for me. I felt there was a good plot somewhere but it was overshadowed by the childish almost puerile behaviour of the main protagonists.All the elements I expect are here, the humour, the comic wit, the mayhem, the iconic, shambolic lesbian queen that is DS Roberta Steel, and a Logan that MacBride has really put through the mill, it is nothing short of a miracle that he has managed to survive.

Who knew, apparently using the postal service to mail human body parts is very illegal, especially if the outspoken gruff professor is an anti Scottish independence bugle, is still using those body parts like hands, heads, Torso. His marriage is failing, he is drinking too much and Logan has his work cut out for him if he wants to save King’s career (and his own), and solve this crime: “the scapegoat’s scapegoat had no intention of letting the original-issue scapegoat screw things up and land him in it”.So everything as you'd expect it to be in a Logan McRae book, and absolutely nothing to dent favourite reading status.