Lin Anderson (2024) Whispers of the Dead

Lin Anderson’s Whispers of the Dead is sold as Rhona MacLeod Thriller. Ah, you might say. An established series. That’s good, in a way. Anderson is one of the top ten percent of writers that can afford to write and produce around a book a year.

Front cover: The Daily Record labelled it (or her) The Best Scottish Crime Series Since Rebus.

I know who Rebus is. I’ve even got a couple of his books lying around unread somewhere (I keep meaning to read).

You probably know where I’m going with this. Whispers of the Dead will stay dead. I got to around page 30.

It’s set in Glasgow which is always good. The Scottish weather, a strong flurry of snow, connects the characters early in the story.

Marnie Aitken watches it from her cell window. She sees, or thinks she sees, her four-year-old daughter, Tizzy—whose body was never found. She’s soon to be freed after serving six years in prison for her murder. A crime she denies. Can’t comprehend. She thinks she’s still out there.  And nobody is ever free from such trauma.

Of course there’s a body. He’s found strapped to a metal chair in Elder Park, eyes and mouth sewn shut, and carrying an engraved bullet in its stomach. He might well have been alive when he was pushed out of a derelict building.

Forensic pathologist Rhona MacLeod will know.

There might even have been witnesses.

Allie and his mates were messing around. Putting their tags on the derelict building. They fled from the Southside of Glasgow to the North under the Clyde Tunnel. But shit. Allie can’t find his phone.

I guess you can guess what happens next? Read on.