Truth Dare Kill - Gordon Ferris

Ferris sets his crime thrillers in the immediate postwar period, when everything was still rationed but already people were starting to wonder how we could have won against the odds and yet seemingly lost everything.  His Douglas Brodie quartet is set in Glasgow, whereas Danny McRae is a private eye in London.  Otherwise, the two protagonists are much too similar - born in Ayrshire poverty, both ex-Glasgow coppers, both elevated to rank in the war, both damaged by the experience.  To be fair, McRae is much more damaged.  He was an SOE operative captured by the Germans and beaten to within an inch of his life.  As a result he is visibly and mentally scarred.  He has lost an entire year of memory and suffers crushing headaches during which he loses days and suffers all sorts of visions.  During these episodes, who knows what he gets up to?

A rare paying client sucks him to a dark family secret which also opens a door onto his own past.  Further than that, it wouldn't be fair to go, because Ferris revels in tangled webs for his plots.  On that score, I will content myself by saying, the final twist is an absolute stunner which I, for one, did not suspect.

Otherwise, Ferris writes well, very well.  His characters, male and female, are equally interesting and fully rounded.  His research rings true.  I will certainly be on the lookout for the second McRae, The Unquiet Heart.

The Hanging Shed - Gordon Ferris

I said I didn't need to read it because I'd read the follow-up which gives the plot away.  But I read it anyway and whilst I did already know some of the plot, there was enough extra storyline to reel me in.

It's 1946, Brodie has spent the months since being demobbed in London, doing a spot of casual freelance journalism.  But he's called to Glasgow by old school pal Hugh Donovan who has got a bit of a problem.  He's been found guilty of murdering a little boy and is due to hang in a couple of weeks.

Donovan used to be the best looking lad in his age group.  Not now - trapped in a burning cockpit, he's a monster now, hooked on painkillers.  Brodie hasn't seen him since they were in late teens.  They stopped being best pals when Donovan took Brodie's girlfriend.  It's her son Donovan is said to have killed.

It's more Richard Hannay than Inspector Rebus but it moves along and has moments of reflection.  On balance I think the key element of the storyline, the whys and wherefores of the boy's death which I obviously won't reveal here, is too easy.  It's in all the papers and it's the first idea every new crime writers reaches for.  Which means you kind of expect it from every new crime writer.

I liked Bitter Water better, and I'll certainly read the other two Brodie novels, Pilgrim Soul and Gallowglass.  What I really like the sound of though is Ferris's other series, about a private eye with amnesia.  Why the hell he chose to call him McRae is beyond me.  Stuart MacBride has that one covered.

Bitter Water - Gordon Ferris

Yet another new Scottish crime writer, this time specialising in the latest sub-genre, post-WW2 Scottish crime.  Ferris has two strands on the go, a London series featuring Danny McRae, and a Glasgow series fearuring Douglas Brodie.  Bitter Water is the second Brodie; the fourth, Gallowglass, is due imminently.

Brodie has a great backstory which gives him access to crime.  He used to be a policeman, then he became an officer in the 51st Highland Regiment, one of the few to escape betrayal by French surrender monkeys at Caen - a subject which interests me greatly, and which is a key storyline here.  For this novel he has been taken on as a crime reporter at the Glasgow Gazette, clearly as a result of his adventures in the first of the series, The Hanging Shed.

Bitter Water is so heavily reliant on The Hanging Shed that there really should be a warning on the cover, saying read them in order.  Having read Bitter Water there can be no surprises in The Hanging Shed as everything, but everything is reiterated.  That's a mistake on Ferris's part.  It's cost him a sale in my case.  And it's a shame because I absolutely loved this book.  He seems to be spot on in his research.  There are bags and bags of period details to get our teeth into.  The story is complex and cleverly incorporates subjects of importance to us today, thus letting us empathise with characters who would have been reviled at the time.  And Ferris is very, very good at pace.  The action never flags, the denouement is pure thriller, and there is a revelation at the very end which justifies what I feared would be an overlong and unnecessary tying up of loose ends.

Highly recommended.