STUART MACBRIDE
In Stuart's own words, he `has scrubbed toilets offshore, flunked out of university, set up his own graphic design company, worked in marketing people, got dragged into the heady world of internet stuff, developed massive applications for the oil industry, drunk heaps of wine, created the perfect recipe for mushroom soup, and grown a very nice beard thank you very much. He lives, just left of the back of beyond, in North East Scotland with his wife Fiona and enough potatoes to feed an army.'
A sixth Logan McRae will be published in 2010.
Awards:
2006: Barry Award for Best First Novel, Bouchercon
Crime Festival (COLD GRANITE)
2007: CWA Dagger in the Library (first three novels)
2008: ITV3 Breakthrough Thriller of the Year (BROKEN SKIN)
Nominations:
2006: Runner-up in the Best First
Novel category at the inaugural International Thriller Writers Awards (COLD
GRANITE)
2007: Runner-up for Barry Award for Best British Novel at the 2007 Bouchercon.
(DYING LIGHT)
2007: Finalist for Harrogate Crime Novel of the Year (COLD GRANITE)
2008: Finalist for Harrogate Crime Novel of the Year (DYING LIGHT)
HALFHEAD (HarperVoyager, autumn 2009)
A near-future, sub-tropical and dystopian Glasgow in a police state governed
by the Network. The Network's police arm, the reviled `Bluecoats' are judge
and jury governing the monolithic tenements that contain the restive underclasses.
Punishment for the worst offenders has a rehabilitative aim. Those convicted
of the worst crimes have their own `care in the community', surgically administered.
Lobotomised, sterilised and sexual organs removed, their lower jaws removed,
the `halfheads' are a shambling group of epsilons, considered safe enough
to release back into the community to do the most menial jobs. Desensitised
and mute, they pass with barely a thought or glance from the rest of the populace.
But one such `Halfhead' has become sentient again - Dr Fiona Westfield, a
near-genius psychologist and surgeon committed to the procedure for the most
appalling crimes. And she is on the loose again.
And the Network's Assistant Section Director, William Hunter, and bluecoat, Lieutenant Emily Brand form an uneasy alliance to hunt this serial-killer down.
MacBride's thriller combines elements
of police procedural in a near-future setting with his signature gallows humour.
World rights: HarperCollins
BLIND EYE (HarperCollins, 4th May 2009)
An infamous Aberdeen drug-dealer is left horribly mutilated and DS Logan McRae
suspects that some of his colleagues are a little too close to Aberdeen's
crime lords, but the question is who is on the take?
The Grampian force are baffled by a series of attacks on members of the burgeoning Polish community in which the victims' eyes are gouged out. Are they an act of a xenophobe with a grudge to bear, or is there a connection to their homeland? Logan has an ally in the tough, Polish copper, Senior Constable Wiktorja Jaroszewicz as he finds himself deep over his head in uncharted waters.
And Logan is dumbfounded when his boss, DI Steele, announces that she is going to try and adopt a child bringing out an unexpected maternal side to her. The awful thought dawns on her colleagues that she might be entering the world of responsibility.
A sixth Logan McRae novel will be published in May 2010.
Worldwide rights: HarperCollins UK
US rights: Minotaur
SAWBONES (Barrington Stoke, 1st July 2008)
Sometimes you have got to take the law into your own hands. Laura Jones, sixteen
year old daughter of an East Coast gangster has been snatched by `Sawbones'
a serial killer with a most unpleasant m.o.
This time he has picked on the wrong victim and the wrong family.
The boss is not going to allow the
FBI to screw things up again and allow Laura to become Sawbones's latest victim.
So, he despatches four of him most trusted men to go on a road trip across
the States in this tables turned revenge tale.
All volume rights: Barrington Stoke
FLESH HOUSE (HarperCollins, 5th May 2008)
The fourth Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of 'Cold Granite',
'Dying Light' and `Broken Skin', set in gritty Aberdeen. The remains of a
corpse are found amongst a consignment of frozen meat in Aberdeen and suddenly
the police canteen food loses its appeal. A bloody killer is kidnapping people,
butchering them and serving them up as food. The case bears all the hallmarks
of the work of Ken Wiseman, who has been imprisoned for a series of bloody
murders up and down the country from twenty years' ago. Yet, Wiseman is safely
behind bars in Peterhead gaol, put there by Logan's superior, DI Insch, then
a young detective constable. And as people begin to disappear, a team of officers
from the Wiseman case arrive in Aberdeen to assist Logan and co in their investigations.
And the arrival of the charismatic senior officer Andy Faulks of the West
Midlands force, offers Logan new career opportunities and the chance to put
closure on his increasingly rocky relationship with WPC Watson. But as a new
beginning seems tantalisingly close, old wounds are reopened and one officer's
life will be in ruins; the others will never be the same again...
BROKEN SKIN (HarperCollins, 1st May 2007) (US title: BLOODSHOT)
In the pale grey light of a chilly February, Aberdeen is not at its best!
There's a rapist prowling the city's cold granite streets, leaving a string
of tortured women behind. But while DS Logan McRae's girlfriend is out acting
as bait, he's dealing with the blood-drenched body of an unidentified male,
dumped outside Accident and Emergency. When a stash of explicit films turn
up, all featuring the victim, it looks as if someone in the local bondage
community has developed a taste for violent death, and Logan gets dragged
into the twilight world of pornographers, sex-shops and S&M. To make matters
worse, when they finally arrest the Granite City Rapist, Grampian Police are
forced by the courts to let him go: Aberdeen Football Club's star striker
has an alibi for every attack. Could they really have got it so badly wrong?
Logan thinks so, but the trick will be getting anyone to listen before the
real rapist strikes again. Especially as his girlfriend, PC Jackie 'Ball Breaker'
Watson, is convinced the footballer is guilty and she's hell-bent on a conviction
at any cost...
Worldwide rights: HarperCollins UK
US rights: Minotaur
Dutch rights: Unieboek
German rights: Goldmann
Norwegian rights: Tiden Norsk
Polish rights: Amber
Swedish rights: Forum
Turkish rights: Artemis
DYING LIGHT (HarperCollins, 2nd May 2006)
Six people are burnt to death in a squat in a rough neighbourhood of Aberdeen.
The door of the squat has been nailed shut before the firebombs are thrown
in. DI Insch has the Procurator Fiscal's department breathing down his neck,
wanting a speedy conviction. Everyone is to be put on the case. Everyone,
except Insch's protégé, Detective Sergeant Logan `Lazarus' McRae,
much-lauded police hero, responsible for bringing to account the killer of
a number of local children the year before.
McRae's career is heading down the pan. He led a raid on a warehouse that went terribly wrong, leaving one of his team in a coma. The vulpine DI Napier, a political animal through and through, wants to hang the so-called `Police Hero' out to dry. Until he can suspend him, Napier wants McRae where he can do the least harm. He wants McRae out of the way, in the `Screw- Up Squad' a collection of worn-out, ill-favoured, or underachieving police officers, headed by the odd-ball DI Steel. The Screw-Up Squad can be sure that they will be handed the cases no one else wants to handle.
DI Steel is less than impressed with her new Sergeant and will not be doing him any favours. And to cap it all, they have given a new shift, which is playing merry hell with his relationship with WPC Watson.
As all efforts are geared to solving the multiple murder, the Screw-Up Squad are assigned the murder of Rosie Williams, a local prostitute found battered to death in Shore Lane, Aberdeen's red light district. Her violent boyfriend, MacKinnon, looks bang to rights.
That is of course, until something decidely nasty turns up in a suitcase in woods outside of the city. And McRae begins to suspect that they might not be dealing with a one-off…..
Worldwide rights: HarperCollins UK
US rights: Minotaur
Dutch rights: Unieboek
French rights: Michel Lafon
German rights: Goldmann
Italian rights: Newton & Compton
Norwegian rights: Tiden Norsk
Polish rights: Amber
Swedish rights: Forum
Turkish rights: Artemis
COLD GRANITE (HarperCollins, 2nd May 2005, paperback 16th January 2006)
DS Logan McRae of the Grampian police returns from sick leave to find himself
investigating the murder of a child, found in a waterlogged ditch, close to
the River Don. A second child's body is found and another child disappears.
McRae is assigned the less than softly-softly WPC Watson, affectionately known
as `Ball Breaker' to her colleagues. McRae and his superior, DI Insch are
under pressure to get results and McRae struggles with a knife wound that
has barely healed, and a fear that when the pressure is on, he might just
freeze.
Set against the backdrop of a wet and wintry Aberdeen in the north of Scotland, Stuart MacBride has created a pacy and compelling police procedural thriller, full of dark humour and gut-wrenching moments.
COLD GRANITE was published as a lead title on 3rd May 2005 with a major promotional campaign.
Worldwide rights: HarperCollins UK
US rights: St Martin's Press
Bulgarian rights: Infodar
Czech rights: BBArt
Dutch rights: Unieboek
French rights: Editions Michel Laffon
German rights: Goldmann
Hungarian rights: Ulpius Haz
Italian rights: Newton & Compton
Japanese rights: Hayakawa
Norwegian rights: Tiden Norsk
Polish rights: Amber
Romanian rights: Polirom
Swedish rights: Forum
Thai rights: Pearl Publishing
Turkish rights: Artemis
Praise for Stuart MacBride:
"Ferocious and funny, this is Tartan Noir at its best." Val McDermid
"Crime writing fiction of the highest order." Mark Billingham
"Hostile and foreboding." Christopher Brookmyre
"I'm green with envy." R D Wingfield
"If you're looking for taut narrative, gut-churning incident, strong characterisation, all shot through with savagely dark humour, then look no further." Reginald Hill
"Q: What book do you wish you had written?" A: Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride." Bernard Cornwell, Financial Times Magazine
"Compelling reading." Daily Telegraph
"Brilliantly written, world-class stuff." Daily Mail
"Stuart MacBride goes straight for the jugular." Glasgow Herald
