A good read, making me impatient to explore the Isle of Mull. Although the dustcover shows Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow (a location which does appear briefly in the story), the main location of events and atmosphere is Mull and Morvern, events in Glasgow the recollections of two decades earlier. I suspect the portrayal of the island community is pretty accurate - as quite a fan of the writer Ann Cleeves, I found myself seeing similarities to her Shetland books. I rather wish the local DI had not fallen out of the story - surely she could have been a guest at the wedding which concludes the book? Perhaps (like Sayers and her creation Lord Peter Wimsey) Gray loves her hero too much. ( )

This is the second DS Lorimer novel I’ve read recently and found it just as compelling and clever as the first. In this, we learn more about Lorimer’s early days as Glasgow police and the early, tragic days of his marriage. Gray does a fine job of filling out the reader’s view of Lorimer and his wife, and handles the heartbreak of lost babies and infertility with sensitivity. The mystery is well-plotted and paced, and thoroughly engaging. Recommended. (Full review at http://itsallaboutthebook.org) ( )

Keep the Midnight Out is the 12th novel in the DCI Lorimer Series. This is the first that I have read in this series, but it did not deter me from reading further. The story actually is told in two parts, the first with the death of a young man, a gruesome cold case, whose was never identified or the murder solved. The second is about the murder of another young man and the similarities are too hard to ignore for DCI Lorimer, as he was the detective on the first.

Though I really enjoyed the murder mystery immensely, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Glasgow and the characterization. The author's writing really sent me to the Isle of Mull, the sounds, the descriptions of the people and the talent of all of the people who solved the case. When I thought I had it figured out as to who the murderer was, new clues were thrown in and turned my thoughts all around.

I love to read mystery/thrillers and police procedurals and this one did not disappoint me at all, I really need to back and start the series from the beginning, but this can be read as a stand-alone! If you love a great story than Alex Gray's novels are sure to please! ( )

In this installment of the Bill Lorimer series, he and his wife, Maggie, are on vacation on the Isle of Mull when the body of a young man is found on the shore near their cottage. The man’s appearance and manner of death are similar to a case Lorimer worked in Glasgow 20 years previously, and the book alternates between the two storylines: one featuring the young DS Lorimer learning the tricks of the trade, and the other featuring the mature Detective Superintendent guiding others through the case.

Normally this sort of thing would be catnip for me, but I had a hard time getting into it. For whatever reason my mind was just not receptive to the magic of Mull. I do admit that I was following my usual “read series out of order” practice, and perhaps this particular installment was not the best to jump in with. But I was also not crazy about the thread in the 20-years-earlier storyline where Lorimer and Maggie were trying to have children; it was going to be sad and awful, and I don’t really like stories about pregnancy anyway.

All this said, I am open to trying another book in the series…perhaps one that stays in Glasgow, because the scenes in this one that were set in Glasgow were quite good in terms of providing local flavour. ( )