Fallen Gods

by Quintin Jardine

Overview

Can Skinner surmount the greatest challenge of his life... and if he does, will he ever be the same? A thrilling novel in the hugely popular Scottish crime series.

When a body is found after a flood, the secrets of a tempestuous life surface with it. Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner has kept the existence of his hated brother Michael hidden for years. As he relives their past conflict, other demons threaten his future. For not only are his professional enemies circling, but Sarah, his wife, seems set on a course for calamity. Meanwhile, in an Edinburgh art gallery, his team confront a shocking and very public case of arson. Was it a political protest, or something much deeper?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780755358700
Publisher:	Headline
Publication date:	09/06/2011
Series:	Bob Skinner Mysteries
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Quintin Jardine was born once upon a time in the West - of Scotland rather than America, but still he grew to manhood as a massive Sergio Leone fan. On the way there he was educated, against his will, in Glasgow, where he ditched a token attempt to study law for more interesting careers in journalism, government propaganda, and political spin-doctoring. After a close call with the Brighton Bomb in 1984, he moved into the even riskier world of media relations consultancy, before realising that all along he had been training to become a crime writer. Now, forty novels later, he never looks back.

Along the way he has created/acquired an extended family in Scotland and Spain. Everything he does is for them.

He can be tracked down through his blog: http://quintinjardine.me

Editorial Reviews

“Jardine excels at coordinating the multiple crimes crucial to a police procedural and setting his coppers against the clock."  —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Detective Chief Constable Bob Skinner’s wife, brother, and heart all fail him, but not his Scots gall. Skinner’s American wife Sarah has returned to the US to bury both her parents. At their funeral, Skinner falls unconscious from an apparent heart attack. When his enemies on the Police Board back home take the opportunity to declare him unfit for duty, Skinner, overcome equally by outrage and panic, abandons his wife and children in the States to fight for his job in person. Angry and bereft, Sarah retaliates by taking up with an old lover, football star Ron Neidholm—Jardine (Poisoned Cherries, p. 939, etc.) endows his male heroes with large muscles everywhere, including, sometimes, between the ears—while Skinner works on his abs and his political enemies in Scotland. His Machiavellian calisthenics are interrupted when the remains of his brother, a man whose existence he had denied for decades, turn up in the flotsam of a flood. Michael Skinner’s body bears signs of violence, but Bob’s barely begun to investigate when he receives a frantic call from Sarah’s lawyer. She’s been found wailing over Neidholm, murdered by a weapon with her fingerprints on it. Luckily, there’s nothing Skinner (Skinner’s Round, 1996, etc.) can’t sort out, including adultery, dysfunctional family histories, corrupt politicians, and digital photography. Larger-than-life and often more irritating than life, Skinner once again vincit omnes.

Kirkus Reviews