The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster
| The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: The fifth book in the series is a great read. There's corruption and naivety in high places | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 384 | Date: March 2024 |
| Publisher: HQ | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0008551322 | |
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It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
Of course, you can't keep a secret like this in Police Scotland and word soon gets back to DI Ross Fraser, DS Craigie and DC Janie Calder. They advise caution. Their advice would be not to touch the deal with a barge pole but the DCC has her own agenda. Solving the disappearance of Beata Dabrowski would be good: catching a prominent person would put her in pole position for when the Chief Constable position fell vacant. In the meantime, she's worried that Fraser and his team answered to the Chief Constable. She'd like them to answer to her - and possibly to disband the team entirely.
Craigie's got other things on his mind. Life at home is going to change but that's not going to stop him from discovering what Davie Hardie's up to. You'll have your suspicions about what's going on but Neil Lancaster keeps the tension high and there's never a dull moment right through to the final page. It's obvious who some of the bad guys are - the Hardies were never going to be on the side of the angels - but there's a real mystery about who is behind the deaths which pile up. The ending - when it came - was particularly satisfying. The clues were all there but I missed them.
It was a good, exciting read, but as well as reading the book, I listened to an audio download (which I bought myself) narrated by Angus King. His range of voices (male and female) is excellent and the pacing was very good. This is the first time I've listened to anything narrated by King but I'd be happy to hear more from him.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the Book to the Bookbag.
The Devil You Know would read well as a stand-alone but you'd get more out of the book if you read it as part of the sequence:
Neil Lancaster's DS Max Craigie novels in chronological order
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