Craig Robertson (1)

"Random" is the story of a serial killer like none I've read before. This is not some Hannibal Lecter evil-genius anti-hero, nor the all too common I-like-to-cause-women-pain serial killer, or even the Dexter "dark passenger" kind of killer.

This is a story of a disciplined man, following a plan with minimal emotional involvement. A plan that will get him an outcome that he greatly desires.

At least, that's how it starts.

Executing the plan costs our killer. It eats away at his humanity. It stresses him to the point where he struggles to keep control and starts to give way to paranoia and anger.
The whole story is told from the killer's point of view and we get to watch him fall apart.

"Random" delivers many of the things that attract people to serial killer books: tension and suspense, ingeniously managed kills, a strong sense of place, a high level of plausibility and a level of graphic violence that is convincing enough to be disturbing but never crosses the line into voyeuristic murder porn.

Yet the most interesting thing about the book is not who gets killed and how but the why of it all. The motivation behind the plan. The end game that you won't see coming. This is all brilliantly done through interior dialogue and memories. Memories are important in this novel. Our killer says:

"Memories are like landmines. You never know which one will blow up in your face".
Our killer is a fully developed character. Someone I could feel pity for. Someone who has lost himself. Someone doing things that he knows are unforgivable but which he makes himself do anyway.

Being inside this man's head is not a pleasant experience but it's not a trip to loony town either. It's unpleasant because any of us might find ourselves where he is.
The plot is clever and the pacing works. It's an astonishing debut by an author I want more of.

I picked up "Random" as part of my Thirty Firsts 2019 TBR Reading Challenge.The book is marketed as "Narey and Winter #1" so I expected it to be the first in a series of police detective stories, set in Glasgow, about two police detectives.

In reality, I spent all my time in the killer's head. Narey features throughout the book as a kind of remote threat of justice. Winter didn't make an appearance. I have no idea where book two will go.

It sounds to me like "Random" was a successful one-off novel that begged for an encore. Craig Roberstons writing is good enough to convince me to give the next book a try and find out where it goes.… (meer)

I am surprised to find that this is the third in the series of DS Rachel Narey novels. It has the feel of a first outing. The story is strong, but the characters are indistinct. I feel that having three detectives may be too many to make individual characters.

Interestingly, DS Rachel Narey is not the most interesting. She is the standard tough female cop of fiction. In this adventure, her father ( a retired detective) has Alzheimer's and she believes that solving an old case, in which dad failed, will put his mind at rest. A dangerous theory: should we all just work harder to gain the respect of fading parents, or would it be better to spend more time with them? She is the archetypal driven crime solver and seems to be left to her own devices as to which crimes to tackle.

Uncle, Danny is an equally stock character, the ex policeman who is so big and tough that he stands up to the hardest criminal and, despite age and a less than perfect physique, wins any fight.

Tony Winter, a police photographer, with an equally lax authority structure as that of Rachel, is the most interesting figure. He has something in his past; possibly explored in one of those earlier works, and an unhealthy fascination for the blood and gore side of his job. He reminds me, a little, of Tom Ripley.

The story is good but,I would like to associate more with the hero.… (meer)

In Witness the Dead, DS Rachel Narey and police photographer Tony Winter are tasked with tracking down a serial killer who seems to be copying the MO of the notorious Red Silk killer. “Red Silk” targeted young women who patronized the Klass nightclub and was known by that name because of the red silk handkerchief a witness said they saw in his lapel. But if the man who is suspected of being “Red Silk” is in prison, who’s committing this new set of murders?

Despite being the fourth book in the Rachel Narey series, Witness the Dead contains enough information about the recurring characters to orient new readers and (hopefully) not alienate established ones.

The plot of “serial killer targets women” is one I tend to avoid these days because it’s done so often. Ditto the idea of gloaty convicts manipulating police officers from within the safe confines of the prison. It was really the setting of the book that went a long way to keeping me interested; Glasgow is a great place and it is described well in these pages. If this had been set anywhere else (especially in the States), I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

I’d recommend this if you’re looking for a mystery set in Scotland (or Glasgow to be precise) and are able to handle something a bit grim.… (meer)