This started off strongly and I enjoyed the chapters from Mark's perspective. The wicca elements took up more and more space as the plot developed, which was unfortunate from my perspective, as I didn't feel the sympathy for them the author presumably intended. The whole 'sexual magick' thing was ridiculous (and is it really even wiccan?) and the plot got more and more bogged down as people kept secrets and then revealed them to some people but not others. The ending was an anticlimax in that the 'nine' either didn't really exist as the police had been led to believe or got away with it. I didn't like Freya - McNab can do better. ( )

I enjoyed this a lot - nice pace, good characterisation (well illustrated and not too extreme individuals) and a nicely complicated plot. ( )

THE SPECIAL DEAD (Rhona Macleod #10) by Lin Anderson is an excellent tenth title in this Scottish noir series.
I like the cover art; the info about numerology; the creepy, disturbing Barbie dolls - what do they mean?; cats; WICAN spells and ceremonies; Rhona’s ever complex relationship issues; very detailed forensics; inclusion of the university library setting and its special collections; Glasgow’s ‘sense of place’; the personality of DI Bill Wilson and the management of his staff; and the sideline primer of Scottish whiskey.
I liked Rhona’s musings on the science of forensics - “Forensics were a way of mapping out what happened in intricate detail. There was no emotion involved, only science. The science of who, where, and when.”
I recommend this title and series. ( )

I never quite felt I had got to grips with this novel. I kept expecting to reach that tipping point at which I know I am enjoying the book and feel properly caught up in it, but that never happened.

It might not be fair for me to judge the novel – it is, I think, the tenth instalment on a series featuring pathologist Rhona MacLeod, but was the first that I had read, so I recognised that I was coming to established characters with their own psychological hinterlands about which I was wholly ignorant. I don’t think that was the whole problem, though. I have started any number of series midway through, and still enjoyed them. Indeed, there are a lot of series of books that I have only enjoyed because I have joined them several volumes in. For instance, I doubt whether I would have bothered to read any other Dalziel and Pascoe books if I had read ‘A Clubbable Woman’ (the first in the series) when it first came out. The same might also be said for Ian Rankin’s Rebus books if I had started with ‘Knots and Crosses’. Both are now among my favourite series .

My problem with this book lay more in the implausibility of the plot and the clumsiness of the characterisation. I’m sorry but this was not one for me ( )

The Special Dead – Addictive as Crack

Lin Anderson has created a crime thriller series around forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod that is as addictive as crack. Unlike other Glasgow based crime novels; we are made to think a little, which is always a good thing. Anderson’s writing style and prose is stunning, she is descriptive without going in to too much detail and boring the reader, her writing is soothing while drawing you further in to the story. Lin Anderson is yet another example of the excellent Scottish writing of the moment and Val McDermid has a worthy challenger for her crown, as Queen of Scottish Crime Fiction.

The book is the Friday night rite of passage of the young, go to pub, boy meets girl, boy gets lucky, gets to fill his boots even if things are kinkier than he is used too. While the sex is great and he has no memory of much of the night, when he wakes the girl is no longer next to him. As he tries to sneak out he is opening doors to find the exit, when he discovers the object of his Friday night lust. Unfortunately she is dead, in a room full of dolls suspended from the ceiling and she owns a very scary black cat with green eyes.

What follows is a complex investigation that brings Rhona MacLeod back working with the newly demoted Detective Sergeant Michael McNab is an investigation in to the truth. Both would be entering a world they know nothing about as everything hinges around Wicca and their religion and practices. While at the same time people higher up the Police chain of command are worried that McNab may put his foot in things during the investigation.

We also see the complicated lives of both Rhona MacLeod and Michael McNab are intertwined however much they try to break their bonds and move on. Both are dependent on each other for the truth to be served and come out, especially as they are up against powers unknown. Both Rhona, as a scientist, and McNab as detective, are also sceptical of Wicca and Witches but need to overcome this to be able to solve the crimes.

The Special Dead has a wonderful pace throughout the book that you just do not want to break, as you read on you are drawn in further and want to know what is happening. This crime thriller was one of the most gripping that I have read in a while and cannot wait to read more of Lin Anderson’s work. This is one author who is going places, get aboard and enjoy the ride. ( )