Blind witnesses

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Blind Witnesses is a detective novel by Stuart MacBride published by HarperCollins UK in 2009 ; the original English title is Blind Eye . The novel was translated by Andreas Jäger and published in 2010 as a German first edition by Goldmann Verlag . It is the fifth novel in the Logan MacRae series .

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Close your eyes soon ...

A good six months has passed since Logan MacRae solved the case of the "butcher" in the previous novel Blood and Bones . Afterwards, several things on duty didn't go according to plan and he still ekes out his life as a detective sergeant. He is also promptly in command of an operation in which a police officer is injured and a witness is shot and critically wounded by one of his colleagues. On top of that, the task force finds the fifth man whose eyes have been cut out and then the eye sockets burned out. At the same time, the police received letters in which the perpetrator boasted that his victims were dazzled.

Two days later

After falling out of favor with DCI Finnie, Logan has to work on small cases again with DI Steel, whereby they arrest the well-known pedophile Rory Simpson. He was able to see the perpetrators after they blinded Simon MacLeod - a great figure in the Aberdeen underworld - and helps with the creation of a phantom image . The investigation remains on the spot for a long time and Logan is also supposed to solve the case of the murdered drug dealer Harry Jordan and take care of a gang of thugs from Manchester. After Logan conducts some interviews in a Catholic parish, Ricky Gilchrist is arrested. He admits the glare and the case seems to be resolved until another victim with burned out eye sockets is found.

Za Naszrą I Waszą Wolność (For our and your freedom)

After there were cases with the same modus operandi in Poland as early as the 1980s, Logan travels to Warsaw and on to Krakow to look for surviving victims with police chief Wiktorija Jaroszewicz. And again it is Logan who - without any significant knowledge of the Polish language - tracks down Rafal Gorzkiewicz in the Kraków district of Nowa Huta through members of the Solidarność movement . He served in the war in Afghanistan and built bombs and booby traps there. After returning home, he tried to make the movement a success with bomb attacks, but was arrested, tortured and blinded. The blind old man gives Logan and police chief Jaroszewicz important information about Vadim Mikhailovich Kravchenko, who calls himself Kostchey , the lord of the underworld. When his helpers attacked Logan and Jaroszewicz, Gorzkiewicz had long since fled his apartment. They can get to safety in the bathtub in front of the bomb with a time fuse, while their attackers do not survive the explosion.

Six days later

Back in Aberdeen, Logan tracks down the fleeting Rory Simpson and creates new phantom images with him, because he lied in the first pictures for fear of being dazzled. Simpson is taken into protective custody at DI Steel's house and suddenly Jaroszewicz, who is temporarily disabled after her injury in Nowa Huta, also appears in Aberdeen. After a drinking binge with his Polish colleague, Logan, Jaroszewicz and Rory Simpson are kidnapped from Steel's house by Kravchenko and his helper Grigor. Kravchenko blinds Simpson and takes Jaroszewicz hostage to force Logan to work together. After Logan prevented the search of the Buckie Ballad ship with a load of handguns on board, his colleague DS Pirie, who was bribed by Kravchenko, lures him into a trap in the Aberdeen district of Altens. Logan can overwhelm Grigor when suddenly Reuben and Johnny Urquhart appear. These are the henchmen of Wee Hamish Mowat, the most powerful gang boss in north east Scotland. Take Grigor and Pirie, who is also from Mowat has lubricate leave with. Logan uses armed force to prevent Kravchenko from being taken and uses force to coax him into the position of Buckie Ballad . It also turns out that Jaroszewicz was suspended from work two years ago because she sabotaged several drug raids against a German drug dealer named Ehrlichmann and is suspected of working for him. However, she only worked with him because he promised her in return for her services that he would extradite Kravchenko, who many years ago also blinded her father.

Aftermath

I. Caulfleg Farm, 35 miles from Aberdeen - four hours later

Hilary Brander, the partner of Simon MacLeod, takes revenge on the glare at Wee Hamish Mowat's pig farm by hitting Grigor's knee joints with a claw hammer ; the MacLeod brothers' preferred method of punishment. Grigor is then fed to the pigs, while DS Pirie next door has to overhear everything and waits for his punishment.

II. Grampian Police Bureau, Monday

The corruption of DS Pirie needs to be worked up and Logan has not been suspended from duty. DC Rennie hands in a sperm donation that DI Steel thinks is from Logan. And while Logan is enjoying a sip of a 30-year-old single malt from Knockdhu , of which Wee Hamish Mowat has sent him a bottle to the presidium, he has to choose between working with Mowat or dealing with his problems with psychotherapist Dave Goulding.

III. Craiginches State Detention Center - two weeks later

Colin MacLeod, Simon MacLeod's brother, is imprisoned in Craiginches for two months for aggravated assault. There he avenged himself for the blinding of his brother Simon on Kravchenko by stabbing the Ukrainian with a sharpened toothbrush while walking in the courtyard.

Reviews

“Stuart MacBride [...] comes from Scotland like Ian Rankin , but two authors can hardly knit their plots more differently. While Rankin prefers the well-groomed enlightenment by means of his dazzling Rebus, MacBride's story rushes on as if it were a matter of ramming doors with your shoulders in order to retain a last glimmer of hope. "

- Wolfgang Franßen

General

After a donation to a Grampian Police charity, MacBride dedicated a role to Hilary Brander in his novel. In the epilogue, MacBride apologizes to the Aberdeen Tourist Office that the next book will be playing in January and February, as he gets "very uncomfortable" when he only writes about sunshine all the time.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Blind witnesses on krimi-couch.de, accessed on July 7, 2019
  2. ^ Stuart MacBride: Blinde Zeugen , Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag Munich, 1st edition 2010, pp. 605f