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Summary
Summary
A murder in an affluent Edinburgh suburb leaves Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner baffled. Then a case of property fraud takes Skinner in a new direction. Moving from Scotland to Spain to a climax in Edinburgh, this thriller follows a trail involving vice, corruption, and the merchants of death.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
He's Robert Skinner, a high ranking Edinburgh policeman. He's got a villa in Spain, two houses in Scotland, the world's best behaved newborn and the world's most resilient new mother, in her late 30s, for a wife. He's a crack shot and a tough-fisted guy with a crass, insensitive, sexist posture who is a distinctly unpleasant fictional creation. In Skinner's third appearance, after Skinner's Festival, a crime lord is murdered in Edinburgh, and a property swindle is uncovered in a Spanish resort town. Skinner gets to log some flying hours, shout at admiring subordinates, swear unnecessarily in mixed company and solve two cases that the author links by coincidence rather than design. Jardine's collection of villains is instantly forgettable. With the exception of the amazingly stalwart Ms. Skinner, most of the women in the book are odoriferous hookers or office underlings required to serve biscuits and coffee to Skinner and the other North Country Neanderthals he hangs out with. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The terrorists who menaced Edinburgh during Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner's first two cases (Skinner's Festival, 1995, etc.) are dormant, but his newest adventure takes a surprisingly international turn when Skinner follows the trail from slain druglord Terrible Tony Manson to Linda Plenderleith. Linda was Tony's favorite flavor until, Skinner theorizes on the spot at her death scene, her enormous husband Lennie was released from jail and made short work of them both. Now Lennie's trail leads to Spain, so that's where Skinner goes, together with his pathologist wife Sarah and their newborn son Jazz. But even before they've packed their bags, a new acquaintance asks Skinner, while he's down there, to look into an unrelated Spanish real-estate scam. Looks like Skinner will be mixing business with business, unless of course it turns out that the two matters--the murdered Edinburgh Godfather and the peseta-ante swindle hundreds of miles away--are somehow connected. Once in L'Escala, Skinner goes at the suspected cheats (and a renter who's imprudently propositioned Sarah) with an iron fist, and though it's never in much doubt who the guilty parties are--either in sunny Spain or back home--it's a pleasure seeing Skinner mete out condign justice. Not as electrifying as those first two cases--though even when he's dealing with mere criminals, Skinner still acts as much the licensed vigilante as Dirty Harry.
Booklist Review
Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner has plenty of responsibilities to juggle, what with the birth of his son, Edinburgh's increasing crime rate, and the murder of local businessman Tony Manson, whose chain of Laundromats provided a legitimate front for his drug-dealing and prostitution rings. The case all comes down to money, of course, with Manson's numerous nefarious schemes, from fiddling with his company funds to running illegal land scams in Spain, all producing plenty of suspects. The investigation takes Skinner from Scotland to Spain to Amsterdam as he tries to track down the missing money, nail the killer, and close the case. Jardine offers up a superb plot that's chock-full of high-octane action, keep-'em-guessing twists and turns, and a slam-bang ending that's as satisfying as it is surprising. Another winner from this very talented writer. --Emily Melton