Blood and bones
Blood and Bones is a 2008 crime novel by Stuart MacBride published by HarperCollins UK ; the English original title is Flesh House . The novel was translated by Andreas Jäger and published in 2009 as a German first edition by Goldmann Verlag . It is the fourth novel in the Logan MacRae series .
content
October 30, 1987
The story begins on October 30, 1987. Jamie McLaughlin comes home late the day before Helloween. When he finally appears with his best friend Richard Davidson, they are not brought by Davidson's mother Catherine, but by a man wearing a Margaret Thatcher mask and a bloody butcher's apron.
20 years later
Twenty years later , human body parts were discovered between beef and pork at “Thompson's Cash and Carry” in Altens, a district of Aberdeen near the harbor. The police immediately have a hot lead, because in the late 1980s the "butcher" was up to mischief in Aberdeen. He usually killed married couples and left behind - after he professionally dismantled the corpses on site - only a piece of human flesh in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and a huge amount of blood on the floor. Ian and Sharon McLaughlin were also victims of the butcher. Jamie survived, however, as the butcher always spared the children. In the first series of crimes, Ken Wiseman was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for the murders. However, he is free again and works for his brother-in-law Andrew McFarlane in his butcher's shop, in which human body parts are promptly found. McFarlane is arrested, while Wiseman cannot be found for the time being. Duncan and Heather Inglis are among the butcher's first “new” victims. Their son Justin is found unharmed at the scene, but there is no trace of Duncan and Heather. Heather is held captive while the butcher hangs her husband Duncan upside down, kills him with a battle gun, cuts his nerves with a spinal cord destroyer, skins and gutted him.
The investigation is led by DI Insch, who was involved in the arrest of Ken Wiseman as a young police officer in the 1980s. Logan McRae is assigned to him, which DI Steel obviously does not like. After a miscarriage, Jackie Watson has temporarily separated from Logan and transferred to the organized crime and gang violence division of the Strathclyde Police in Glasgow . When Logan runs into her on Guy Fawkes Night on the beach in Aberdeen and tells her that he no longer loves her, she hits him in the face with her fist, takes her things out of his apartment and ravages the kitchen and living room. In the meantime, Ken Wiseman is on a campaign of revenge against DI Insch and his supervisor at the time, the now retired DCI Gary Brooks. As the head of the investigation in the 1980s, Brooks shot himself in at Wiseman early on and, together with Insch, beat a confession out of him. On Guy Fawkes Night, Wiseman drugged Brooks with heroin, abused him, and finally threw him from the roof of a high-rise building forty to fifty meters below the ground. Shortly afterwards, he breaks into the Insch family and takes the DI, his wife and his three daughters hostage. He also abuses David Insch and the family dog and puts meat in front of him and his wife, which he pretends to be from one of the daughters. Since the satisfaction over Brooks' death was short-lived, Wiseman wants to torment Insch until the end of his life. He kidnaps Insch's youngest daughter Sophie in order to sell her to a pedophile . When Wiseman set off with DI Insch's Range Rover , Logan happened to recognize the man he was looking for in his manager's private vehicle. He goes into chase and arrests Wiseman after he has had an accident with the vehicle. Sophie Insch, who is tied up in the trunk of the car, does not survive the accident.
In the meantime, people are disappearing again. Valerie Leith becomes a victim of the butcher, her husband is the only surviving adult so far. After a while, Logan realizes that the traces of blood in the Leiths' house do not differ from the butcher's usual modus operandi and finds the body in the septic tank behind the house. The next victims are Tom and Hazel Stephen. Remains of the two are discovered by chance in the bone mill of the slaughterhouse Alaba Farm Fresh Meats . Although the bones can be properly assigned and it is now clear how the butcher disposes of bones and viscera, the investigation is still on the point. After the sisters Sandra and Maureen Taylor disappear, it is the murder of Marcus and Vicky Young that takes the investigation a significant step further. A neighbor saw the butcher enter her neighbors' house and notifies the police. A police car is in the area and arrives at the house a few minutes later. The butcher has already started to cut up Marcus Young. Vicky Young escaped, but was found dead in the immediate vicinity of the house shortly afterwards. While searching for Vicky Young, the police also meet the distraught and half-naked Elizabeth Nichol from the neighborhood. Logan succeeds in establishing a connection between Elizabeth Nichol, the butchers 'guild and the house of Nichols' biological father James Souter. But at this point Nichol has already disappeared with PC Munro, who was assigned to her as a victim protection officer. In one of the abandoned houses behind Alaba Farm Fresh Meats , Logan finds a tunnel system . The butcher escapes again and kills Alec, who is the BBC cameraman documenting the investigation into the butcher's case. Logan, his ex-girlfriend Jackie Watson and Chief Constable Faulds find the remains of PC Munro, the grave of Catherine Davidson - who died in 2001 as Nichol's "beloved consort" - several cells and tons of wrapped human flesh. They follow Nichol, who is accompanied by Heather Inglis, through a secret entrance to the slaughterhouse. Nichol kills Faulds and punctures Jackie's hands with a bolt gun. When Logan tries to overwhelm Nichol, Heather Inglins stands in his way. Ultimately, Nichol escapes by throwing Heather into the bone mill.
Six months later
Half a year after the incident at Alaba Farm Fresh Meats , Heather Inglis is back at her house in "Fittie", as the Aberdeen district is called "Footdee". After falling into the slaughterhouse's bone mill, she lost part of her leg. She suffers from Stockholm Syndrome and has boarded up the windows of her house with chipboard . Elizabeth Nichol has escaped, her alter ego Kelley sends Heather postcards from abroad on a regular basis. a. from Prague . Heather's son Justin is alive and living with his grandmother. On the last pages of the book it becomes clear that Heather, like Catherine Davidson, has become the butcher's "companion". Heather kidnapped James Souter, Elizabeth's father, from his nursing home. While he is tied to a chair in her house, she fries and eats his heart.
General
Unlike his other books, in which MacBride tells almost exclusively from the point of view of Logan MacRae, he describes the events and the like in blood and bones . a. also from the point of view of Ian McLaughlin, Ken Wiseman, PC Munro and at regular intervals from the point of view of Heather Inglis.
Tom and Hazel Stephen donated to a nonprofit to appear as victims in the book. MacBride dedicated them the roles of a couple who were kidnapped, killed and made into meat by the butcher.
The people in the newspaper clippings are represented by MacBride's family members. His brother Christopher appears as Ken Wiseman, his sister-in-law as Catherine Davidson and a certain lady from Fife as Valerie Leith.
literature
- Stuart MacBride: Blood and Bones , ISBN 978-3-442-47029-7
Web links
- Blood and Bones on the publisher's website: www.randomhouse.de
- Flesh House , review on publishersweekly.com
- Flesh House , review on kirkusreviews.com