Blood and Treachery by JD Kirk is one of a series of police procedurals set in Scotland – the team is based in Inverness. The main character is Jack Logan, a man with a dysfunctional home life who lives for his job. This book is not the first in the series and the team is still reacting to events from previous books but not knowing what went on before didn’t mar my enjoyment of this story.
A body is found by a member of the local Mountain Rescue team near to Glencoe. The young man who is the victim has plenty of money because he works offshore but every attempt to trace his employers fails and it transpires that his income really comes from the drug trade. The investigation starts to look at how drugs enter the area and how they are distributed and who might be responsible for this vicious attack.
The landscape is an important part of the plot and the book contrasts the city location of the police with the area in which the body was discovered and the landscape of the highlands.
This is a cleverly plotted and well written crime novel which I enjoyed a lot. The author has his characters use some quite foul language so if this is a problem for you then maybe this book is not the best choice. I didn’t think it was too much but I was slightly less sure about the “banter” between the team and the way that Logan speaks to other police officers – he certainly has little patience for the detective who usually accompanies him and I’m not entirely sure why.
I enjoyed this book a lot and am currently searching out others in the same series.
Anne Is Reading 