Dead Man’s Grave: The first book in a gripping new Scottish police procedural series for crime fiction and mystery thriller fans (DS Max Craigie Scottish Crime Thrillers, Book 1)

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As much as I dislike unnecessary prologues and although it’s not titled as such the first chapter is written from the perspective of the missing man right before he vanished and it really worked as we get to meet him first-hand in a way that we wouldn’t otherwise.

This is very much a plot driven book and fairly fast paced at that, what we get in character development happens on the fly. It could have done with another round of line edits as there are too many filler words and adverbs IMO, especially in the first few chapters (or maybe I didn’t notice once I was hooked). This puts him in Hardie’s crosshairs and the lengths Hardie goes to illustrate that the police corruption goes to the highest levels. It was Christmas 2019 and my wife Clare and son Ollie had travelled from our house in the Highlands to a large country pile in the depths of the countryside near Pitlochry.Not all the facts of the case make sense to Mac and Janie, however, and they soon realise that others were involved; and now the victim’s family are out for revenge on the perpetrators, their families, and, as the investigation later on reveals corruption deep within the Police Force itself, on Max and his family. Detective Max has an interesting backstory, which includes being haunted by his time in Afghanistan.

It doesn’t take them long to find his body hidden in an old grave in the Highlands under a stone carved with the message “this grave can never be opened” and not much longer to find the killer and uncover an old feud. At the heart of it, it's a multi-generation feud of Scottish crime families, corrupted police, a gripping tale, and good action. Introducing DS Max Craigie, this is a police thriller with a dark heart, but one that held my attention to the very end. It is plot/action based rather than character based, and thus, for me, it was an average read; I prefer stories driven by character development. It’s an interesting story that proves the mantra that inspiration can come from anywhere, at any time.You can tell that the author speaks from a point of personal experience, with a sense of authenticity but not at the cost of story. My wife’s best friend, Gail and her huge family had hired out this beautiful, massive house for a week and they had travelled from all over the world to be together for Christmas. Before too long it becomes crystal clear that Tam’s murder is part of an ongoing blood feud involving the Hardie’s, and despite the police’s arrest of the perpetrator the family will stop at nothing to achieve vengeance against their enemy. The head of Scotland's most powerful crime family is brutally murdered, his body is dumped inside an ancient grave in a remote cemetery.