Flesh House (Logan McRae Series #4)

by Stuart MacBride

Overview

The 4th thriller in the Number One bestselling crime series from the award-winning Stuart MacBride. Panic grips The Granite City as DS Logan McRae heads up a manhunt for ‘The Flesher’ – one of the UK’s most notorious serial killers.

Panic strikes the Granite City…

When an offshore container turns up at Aberdeen Harbour full of human meat, it kicks off the largest manhunt in the Granite City’s history.

Twenty years ago ‘The Flesher’ was butchering people all over the UK – turning victims into oven-ready joints – until Grampian’s finest put him away. But eleven years later he was out on appeal. Now he’s missing and people are dying again.

When members of the original investigation start to disappear, Detective Sergeant Logan McRae realizes the case might not be as clear cut as everyone thinks…

Twenty years of secrets and lies are being dragged into the light. And the only thing that’s certain is Aberdeen will never be the same again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780007419425
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/26/2012
Series:	Logan McRae Series , #4
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	687,336
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Stuart MacBride is the No.1 bestselling author of the DS Logan McRae series. His novels have won him the CWA Dagger in the Library, the Barry Award for Best Debut Novel, and Best Breakthrough Author at the ITV3 crime thriller awards. Stuart’s other works include Halfhead, a near-future thriller, Sawbones, a novella aimed at adult emergent readers, and several short stories. He lives in the north-east of Scotland with his wife, Fiona, and cat, Grendel.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Flesh House:

'Stuart MacBride is the most exciting thing to happen to British crime fiction in the last ten years. Flesh House is his fourth book and the best yet … New readers should start here' Northern Echo

Praise for Stuart MacBride:

‘Fierce, unflinching and shot through with the blackest of humour; this is crime fiction of the highest order’ Mark Billingham

‘Ferocious and funny, this is Tartan Noir at its best’ Val McDermid

‘MacBride is a damned fine writer – no one does dark and gritty like him’ Peter James

From the Publisher

Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, MacBride's superbly unsettling fourth novel (after Bloodshot) sets Det. Sgt. Logan McRae on the trail of a serial killer in Aberdeen, Scotland. When human remains are discovered first in a shipping container and later in a local butcher shop, McRae's superiors send him to round up Kenneth Wiseman (aka "the Flesher"), who terrorized the city 20 years earlier but was released on a technicality. Det. Insp. David Insch, who was part of the original Wiseman investigation, is determined to see the man behind bars. But when tragedy strikes, leaving Insch teetering on the edge of throwing away his entire career, McRae realizes that the police have been looking in the wrong direction. As more body parts turn up, McRae must fit the grisly pieces together before time runs out. MacBride's dry wit turns what could have been a gratuitously gory slasher story into a crackling thriller. (Oct.)

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Publishers Weekly

Det. Sgt. Logan McRae returns in MacBride's latest novel (after Bloodshot), and it's the award-winning author's most disturbing book yet. McRae is on the hunt for a serial killer called the Flesher who butchers his victims and then feeds their meat to their family members. The first murders occurred 20 years ago, and Ken Wiseman was convicted but later released on a technicality. Now the Flesher is again terrorizing Aberdeen, and McRae is working to find Wiseman and stop the murders. To add to the pressure, a BBC documentary on the Grampian police force is being filmed during the investigation, so every move the officers make is being recorded. McRae, a very human hero, is juggling the investigation along with his superior officers' eccentricities and a breakup with his girlfriend, even as he ferries around a visiting police chief who was involved in the investigation of the first murders. MacBride's writing is compelling, and his plots are full of surprises (if somewhat gruesome ones), ensuring that readers who are not squeamish will enjoy this latest offering. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ6/1/08; library marketing campaign.]
—Lisa Hanson O'Hara

Library Journal

Bloody deja vu: A generation after a prolific torturer is put away, his modus operandi resurfaces in a new string of crimes. Aberdeen Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is called to a warehouse at the docks in the middle of the night to investigate a gruesome discovery: a food freezer filled with body parts, wrapped like cuts of meat. Their counterparts may have been sold and consumed all over Scotland. Media types are already swarming the scene, and McRae's boss, normally phlegmatic Inspector Insch, is raging predictably. All the evidence seems to point to a return of Ken Wiseman, recently released from prison after serving 20 years for embarking on a sadistic crime spree. Unfortunately he's been keeping such a low profile that the police can't find him. The story fans out to multiple perspectives, including the press hounds tracking the story, a handful of police officers and Heather, a frantic victim abducted along with her husband Duncan and systematically tortured by someone she calls The Butcher. After surprising everyone by volunteering to come in for questioning, Wiseman raises the stakes by secretly capturing Insch, whose absence is met with mixed feelings by the squad. The earnest but slapdash work and infighting of McRae's colleagues, well-documented in previous outings (Bloodshot, 2007, etc.), again provides texture, humor and verisimilitude. A big, shaggy, robust procedural. The story and MacBride's writing are in vigorous, violent harmony.

Kirkus Reviews