Eye for an Eye (DCI Andy Gilchrist) by T F Muir
| Eye for an Eye (DCI Andy Gilchrist) by T F Muir | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: The first in a crime series set in in St Andrews, Scotland. It's not only a good story - it holds a lot of promise for future books in the series. Recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 256/9h10m | Date: June 2007 |
| Publisher: Luath Press | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1905222568 | |
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The murders were particularly brutal: a stake of bamboo driven through the victim's left eye - and it was always the left eye - when there was a storm about. There were no clues as to the identity of the killer and the only thing which seems to link the victims is that they were all wife abusers. As the body count mounts DI Andy Gilchrist is under the cosh: the public are demanding results from his investigations and his boss, Patterson, is demanding his head on a platter.
I did worry that I was meeting quite a few stereotypes when I started on Eye for an Eye: there's the lone cop who works wonders, despite his superior's best attempts the thwart him and then there's the failed marriage. Gail might have left him for someone else, but the real mistress was Gilchrist's job. He has a tenuous relationship with his two children, Jack and Maureen, but he's attempting to pull things together, not least because Gail is dying of pancreatic cancer. Strangely enough, what reassured me enough to continue was that I've already read book six in the series and been impressed. I kept going and it was well worth it.
St Andrews CID are in a difficult situation: it's not even possible to agree on whether the murderer is a man or a woman. It takes a great deal of strength to drive a stake through someone's eye and for this reason alone most of the team are opting for a man as a murderer, but there was a witness (albeit at a distance) to one of the murders and the figure looked rather slight: it could have been a woman. It's a character-driven story rather than one which relies on police procedures or forensics and Frank Muir gives us some memorable actors in a well-realised location. The plot has plenty of twists and turns and there's a superb ending. I had worked out the name of the murderer, but I only beat the name onto the page by a short head.
Rather than read the book in the traditional sense I listened to an audio download (which I bought myself) narrated by David Monteath. He has a good range of voices and I was never in any doubt as to who was 'on stage'. I'm more than happy to listen to more of Monteath's narration of this series.
The go-to series in Scottish crime is usually Inspector Rebus and it is a series which takes a lot of beating, but if you've finished those books you might like to try Quintin Jardine's Bob Skinner novels.
T F Muir's DCI Andy Gilchrist Novels in Chronological Order
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