The dark waters of Aberdeen
The Dark Waters of Aberdeen is a crime novel by Stuart MacBride published by HarperCollins UK in 2005 ; the English original title is Cold Granite . The novel was translated by Andreas Jäger in 2006 and published as a German first edition by Goldmann Verlag . It is the first novel in the Logan MacRae series .
content
Detective Sergeant Logan MacRae is an investigator with the Grampian Police Department . A Press & Journal reporter hyped him to be a “police hero”, but his colleagues nicknamed him Lazarus after he returned to work after nine months of rehab . When Angus Robertson, known as the "Monster of Mastrick", was captured, he administered "non-indicated medical treatment" to Logan by stabbing him in the stomach 23 times with a knife, seriously injuring him.
Fourteen hours after Logan is back on duty, he must represent his absent superiors at a crime scene after the mutilated body of four-year-old boy David Reid, missing three months, was found. The investigation turns out to be difficult, not only because Logan is caught between two superiors - Detective Inspector Roberta Steel and DI David Insch - but also because there are different suspects who, however, are eliminated after lengthy investigations and also a male corpse with chopped off kneecaps swims in the harbor basin. The employee of the city administration, who removes run-over animals from the streets and is therefore called "roadkill", does not lead them to the animal carcass recycling , but collects them in sheds on his property, where they slowly rot. Among the remains of the animals is a girl who has also been missing for a long time. Roadkill is arrested, but more children disappear.
An employee of the horticultural department, who appeared earlier in the book, turns out to be a murderer. At the end of the book, Logan MacRae finds the perpetrator alone, thereby saving the lives of his colleague Police Constable Jackie Watson and another child. While trying to escape, the perpetrator breaks through the ice cover of the lake that has formed in Rubislaw Quarry - one of the granite quarries in Aberdeen - and drowns. Roadkill is beaten up and critically injured by angry parents who believe he is the child murderer. In the hospital, he is stabbed to death by the mother of the girl who was on his property.
Reviews
The author Michael Drewniok sees clear parallels to Inspector Rebus by Ian Rankin , which MacBride does not deny, but which he even points to at one point in the book in a joke. Drewniok also sees it as praise that MacBride reads like Rankin at first, but is irritated by "too conspicuous" matches and resents him "an excess of blood, rot and pathologist slaughter" as well as a calculated staging of the horror of a capital crime against innocent children. He calls MacBride a “politically incorrect beaver” who gnaws at the “already rotten trunk of a taboo”.
"Everything has already been there - but not so hideous"
"The character of Logan McRae can always take on Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus."
“This novel shows once more that the best crime novels these days come from Scotland. This is "Tartan Noir" at its best "
General
The novel is set in the present, at the time it was written in 2005. The author tells almost exclusively from the perspective of the main character Logan MacRae, but not as a narrative self . The dark waters of Aberdeen plays out in winter and the weather of Aberdeen is a regular theme. In particular, the fact that the city is considered the coldest city in the UK and that there is less than seven hours of daylight at the winter solstice is a decisive factor in many of the events in the book. In addition, the protagonists often have to deal with heavy snow and rainfalls. The police work of the Grampian Police - especially during field operations - often appears unprofessional in MacBride's novels, and Logan MacRae also has to regularly justify himself to the internal service supervision because of breakdowns, investigative errors, failed operations or complaints.
Awards
MacBride received the Barry Award for Best First Novel in 2006 for the English original edition .
literature
- Stuart MacBride: The Dark Waters of Aberdeen, ISBN 978-3-442-46165-3
Web links
- The dark waters of Aberdeen on the publisher's website: www.randomhouse.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Dark Waters of Aberdeen on krimi-couch.de, accessed on April 17, 2019
- ↑ Stuart MacBride: The Dark Waters of Aberdeen at randomhouse.de, accessed April 17, 2019