Bound in blood

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Bound in Blood is a detective novel by Stuart MacBride published by HarperCollins UK in 2014 ; the English original title is The Missing and the Dead . The novel was translated by Andreas Jäger and published in 2016 as a German first edition by Goldmann Verlag . It is the ninth novel in the Logan MacRae series .

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After many years of service as a Detective Sergeant in the Aberdeen Criminal Police Department, Logan MacRae is finally on the up and promoted to Assistant Detective Inspector. He succeeds in arresting Stirling Graham and finding his victim, Stephen Bisset, alive. Graham's defense attorney, the accomplished and feared police defense attorney Sandy Moir-Farquharson, finds weaknesses in Logan's investigation and achieves an acquittal for his client.

Before he knows it, Logan - again with the rank of detective sergeant - finds himself a patrolman in rural Banff , where he has to deal with shoplifting, small drug dealers and runaway livestock. He sold his apartment on Marischal Street in Aberdeen to the building contractor John Urquhart, who made the purchase on behalf of "Wee" Hamish Mowat, well above market value. Mowat is the most influential gangster in Aberdeen and would like to have Logan as his successor at the head of his "company" after his death. With this money he finances the stay of his friend Samantha in a special clinic, as she is a nursing case after her severe head injury in the novel Bone Splinters. Logan has actually found pleasure in his new job as a simple patrolman, but his past catches up with him faster than he'd like. A girl's body is found in Tarlair Swimming Pool, a disused seawater swimming pool in Macduff . Logan's instinct is awakened, but the investigative work is done by a team from Aberdeen headed by DCI Steel of all people. Steel was involved in relocating Logan to the province, but immediately secured the services of the experienced investigator to go with him - "just like in the old days" - on the hunt for criminals.

But actually Logan has other tasks. In addition to regular visits to Samantha and the renovation of his apartment in the "Sergeant's Hoose" - a run-down building owned by the police - he should take care of the effective management of the police officers under him and solve a few cases of his own. A youth sprinkles graffiti on politicians' posters , a gang steals ATMs from supermarkets, adult men disappear without a trace in the Banff area and an antique thief is also up to mischief. On top of that, Helen also stays with Logan. She is the mother of a child who has been missing for many years and wants to convince herself personally whether the little girl from the Tarlair Swimming Pool is her daughter. The antique thief and the youngster do not present Logan with a great challenge and with a flair, persistence and a little luck he manages to identify the ATM thieves. A sexual relationship develops with Helen and while Logan is on duty, she renovates his apartment. She also cooks for him on a regular basis, as he mostly subsists on cheap canned lentil soup to raise the money for Samantha's place in the nursing home. The girl's corpse and the mystery of the missing men are closely related. Logan - like Charles Anderson, the father of a boy who disappeared years ago - tracks down a child trafficking ring . While Logan is trying to solve the case properly, Anderson has taken vigilante justice and killed three members of the child trafficking ring. The head of the gang is Dr. Gilcomston, a pediatrician with a criminal record for child abuse . In order to convict him, Logan disregards the regulations and slips the former doctor with a small amount of heroin so that he can apply for a search warrant. The girl who was killed had been missing for four years and was from Carlisle . Helen then travels to Spain to look for her missing ex-husband and their daughter.

Towards the end of the book, Stephen Bisset's children - Catherine and David - kidnap Logan and force him to take them to the Tarlair Swimming Pool. Catherine and David are furious with Logan after his testimony at the trial against Stirling Graham made their father's sexual preferences public, branding him a "pervert". After they both killed their father in intensive care, they kidnapped Graham to get revenge on him. However, he was able to manipulate the siblings and incite them against Logan. They then kidnap Samantha from the nursing home to drown her in the pool water. Logan manages to overpower David and Catherine as well as Graham. However, Samantha's health has continued to deteriorate after David Bisset pushed her into the Tarlair Swimming Pool with her wheelchair. After intensive medical treatment, she now has to be artificially ventilated .

General

On the cover of the original English edition there is a photo of the Tarlair Swimming Pool, in which the girl's body was found in the novel.

After raising a "chunk" of money for charities, MacBride dedicated a role in his book to Dean Scott, Syd Fraser, and Denise Wishart.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stuart MacBride: Linked in blood , Goldmann Verlag Munich, German first edition 2016, p. 733