The Crime Warp

Time for the Dead is the 14 th book in the Rhona MacLeod series by Lin Anderson. Returning to her childhood home on the island of Skye, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod hopes to spend some time recovering from the traumatic events that played out in the previous novel. However, she encounters what appears to be a crime scene in the woods – the complication being there is no body. Fortunately, she is helped by local tracker dog Blaze [an interesting plot device] and is off on the trail of some army medics on leave from Afghanistan. After the discovery of a body at the base of a famous cliff and a potential link to a DS McNab case in Glasgow, before long all of Rhona’s colleagues are joining her on the investigation. It is often said that the landscape in which a story is set can often act as an additional character and this is particularly true in this novel. It is excellently described in its beauty and brutality and plays no small part in the evolution of the story. In fact,...

#Ad Available here Dan Brown said of this book, ‘My kind of thriller’ and I see why. Lots of interesting history, conspiracy, violence and travel to engaging settings. This latest Cotton Malone book, the 14 th in the series, can be read as a stand-alone by anyone new to this engaging protagonist.  The author Steve Barry has obviously done his research into the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, their Malta base, Rome and the Vatican and even Mussolini, his secret correspondence with Churchill and Mussolini’s death in Northern Italy. If you are a devout Roman Catholic, you might want to give this novel a miss, as the author does not shy away from controversial interpretations of early church history and the corruption at the heart of the Vatican. For those, who like pacey action thrillers blended with conspiracy, then go for it! The Cotton Malone books are probably some of the most action-packed historical crime novels on the go. Malone has now retired as an operative...