AFTERSHOCK

Is a copycat killer at work in Edinburgh? Could it be DCC Bob Skinner himself?

Talk about bad lies. At the edge of an Edinburgh golf course, a pretty young woman is found brutally murdered. Instantly, the jittery police are reminded of something they’d prefer to forget: a clever, ruthless serial murderer whose handiwork only recently had Edinburgh on edge. Like the earlier victims, Sugar Dean has been dispatched by a bullet to the back of the head. Again like the others, Sugar, a talented painter, has a connection to the art world. But hasn’t the serial killer been killed himself? So is this murder the work of a copycat? At length it turns out that Big Bob himself was on the links the day Sugar met her end and is on the scene to discover still another female corpse. The suspiciously coincidental timing of Skinner’s movements, together with his ownership of certain paintings pertinent to the case, suddenly make the second highest ranking cop in the nation a person of interest—a plot twist that may well strain the credulity of series loyalists.

Too long and too talky. Fans may long for the time when Jardine (Death’s Door, 2007, etc.) served them up taut and tense.