The Man with No Face

Ed McBain's 87th Precinct relocated to Glasgow? What could be more fun? I started this book -- about the boys and gurrrls of P Division tackling the murder of someone who's had his face shot off -- with enormously high expectations, and was immensely disappointed. The Ed McBain-homage element is assuredly there -- there's even a passage about the city being a woman -- but . . . Well, maybe the "but" is exemplified by the fact that Turnbull's passage about the city being a woman is actually funnier than the one in the McBain parody I put in Dave Langford's and my Earthdoom, and I'm absolutely certain Turnbull didn't mean it to be. McBain's wonderful skill was that often his books consisted more of his marvelous, endlessly entertaining show more digressions than they did plot; yes, of course we care about whodunnit, but the joy is in being with the boys and gals of the 87th as they chatter and badinage their way through events. Turnbull seems to have got the message that there should be lots of digressions and backflashes, but not that these should be witty and a delight in themselves. In a sense, then, his city-is-a-woman passage was a high point for me; elsewhere, though, every time the text moved into a particular selfconscious tone that heralded yet another boring-as-hell digression or backflash, I found myself gloomily leafing forward to check where this particular piece of dullery might come to an end.

Others may find exactly the opposite -- I believe Turnbull has many devotees -- but this is how it was for me. show less

This police procedural was a good read. A murder in which the victim's face has been destroyed although identity is quickly found leads to complications: arson, possible insurance fraud, a kidnapping cold case, money laundering. This group of Scottish police feels these crimes all might be connected, but how?

very good police procedural with as another reviewer mentioned a lot of flawed crooks and cops.