Fatal Last Words

Bob Skinner, Book 19

By: Quintin Jardine

Narrated by: James Bryce

It's August and the Edinburgh International Book Festival is in full swing. The world of books is focused on Charlotte Square Gardens, so it's a considerable embarrassment when a successful crime writer and key member of the Scottish Parliament is found dead in the author tent. But is it natural causes?

DCC Bob Skinner, on the edge of a career-defining moment, doesn't need this in his life. But the victim's phone was tapped, and a brother officer has a threatening visitor. A second victim begs the question: have the authors become targets themselves?

Skinner is going to have to dig deep to solve it, even as his own world implodes and a famous friendship is shattered for ever...

©2009 Portador Ltd (P)2009 Isis Publishing Ltd

Recommended

Great narration; interesting characters and plot; surprise ending

Colourless and limited

I listened to this to the end because I had paid for it, but although the reader was good enough, I found the book boring. The modes of murder were ingenious, but that's about all.

The author is a bit humourless and seems to be obsessed with power, political and organisational. Characters are not well differentiated, and seem to be described mainly in terms of their race, sex and above all status, so that I could not easily remember who was who. A few more vivid descriptions of physical characteristics might have made the people more real.

There was a long description of how the newly appointed police chief apportioned the rank and duties of his subordinates which seemed to me self indulgent and unnecessary.

The same bloodlessness applied to the settings. Other than that this was set in Scotland, with a brief visit to the antipodes, I didn't get any idea of place or even weather. I know description can slow down a story, but I could have done with a bit more atmosphere.