Blood Runs Cold (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster
| Blood Runs Cold by Neil Lancaster | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: It's the fourth book in the series and a cracker with it's look ath the victims of trafficking and the associated criminality. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 416 | Date: April 2023 |
| Publisher: HQ Digital | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0008551278 | |
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Affi Smith was snatched from the bottom of Fyrish, where she'd been doing her training. She'd been a bit of a wayward teenager until she discovered athletics - and it now looks as though she could be heading for the national squad. That's quite an achievement for someone with her background: you see, Affo came to Scotland from Albania as Afrodita Dushku at the age of twelve. She was rescued when she was carrying a kilo of drugs and three years later she's happy with her foster family. There's just one cloud on her horizon: her little sister, Melodi is in a children's home in Tirana - and anyone could get to her.
Affi was snatched by Jetmir Xhilay who originally trafficked her to the UK. He's always been annoyed about the police rescuing her, not least because he was responsible for the drugs which were confiscated. Now he'd like to get his revenge and Affi is to be placed in a brothel in Glasgow and she'll be kept under control by threatening her that Melodi will end up in a brothel in Tirana, which would be worse than anything Affi could suffer. DS Max Craigie hears that Affi has disappeared through his wife who has had some dealings with her and he manages to get DI Ross Fraser and DC Janie Calder along with intelligence analyst, Norma Kirk, involved in the case despite the over-stretched local force concluding that Affi's just another teenager who's gone off for some time on her own.
That doesn't sound very complicated, does it? Well, it is. You've got to factor in the various gangs which are operating in Albania and in Glasgow and what their aims are. Max and the team's involvement is accidental as their remit is to trace corruption within the police force. What was frightening was just how easily the police can be manipulated into providing information about people who should be protected.
The pace is very fast and there are times when you have to remind yourself to breathe The terror level's pretty high too: there's an Albanian psychopath you really wouldn't want to encounter and whilst some scenes are frightening, there are no gratuitously gory description to stay in the mind.
Right now this is one of the better crime series around and I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.
Neil Lancaster's DS Max Craigie novels in chronological order
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