A corrosive collision of cultures, the gregarious Scot and the family obsessed Greek combine to fascinating effect in the main character Alex Mavros. There you have it! The Scottish first name and Greek surname! Alex struggles to find his place in the world being neither fully Scottish nor Greek,...
Most of the flavor of the first 50 pp. consists of showing how by 2026 the Edinburgh ultra-rationalist oligarchy has become completely totalitarian, Edinburgh itself decrepit, its economy shot (barring fawning to the sacred tourism-cow), its people fearful and everyone ignorant of the outside. [T...
This book is one in a series set in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 2020's after the world economy has collapsed into scattered city-states due to wars and drugs. Edinburgh is tightly run by the Guardians with the support of auxiliaries, who are referred to by their numbers rather than their names. Th...
I told him I’d email him the description and cost. The problem was that neither I nor Karen had any source of funds—the Justice Department had frozen our credit cards and bank accounts. Sebastian said he would look into the situation, but in the meantime would pay for the ring himself. I was impr...
I was wearing my leather jacket, black shirt and trousers, and Dr. Martens—standard male crimewriter’s garb. The cops were in a blue Rover about fifty yards down the street. I hadn’t seen them in the morning when I went running. Maybe they weren’t on shift then. I hoped they hadn’t spotted me mak...
Great stuff.” —The Guardian “Captivating.” —Daily Mirror “Clever in all the right ways. Its plotting is a little out of the box with its mixture of all things serial killers; a touch of Golden Age puzzle solving (Colin Dexter would approve); a large dose of machismo bravado, and the emotional exp...
He wasn’t happy with what he’d just found. Joe Greenbaum was right about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant—its ravings had been reported on a site run by an occult enthusiast who called himself The Lord of the Underworld. Earlier, Simmons had got a techie to access the e-mail correspondence on...
Then there was an explosion of bright yellow light. ‘Don’t worry,’ Eleni said. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’ Mavros peered into the illuminated passage, vaguely aware of the sound of a generator on the surface. ‘How far does this tunnel go?’ The archaeologist handed him a hard hat and jammed one ...
Katharine had managed to contain herself until we reached the middle of the infirmary courtyard. Then she planted herself in front of me and set to. “He’s a gangbanger,” I said, knowing already that this was an argument I wasn’t going to win. “He and his pal were stealing citizens’ vouchers.” “An...
In the last hour night had fallen on the city. The ruins of the palace were as dark as anywhere in Edinburgh. Holyroodhouse had been the epicentre of the catastrophic riots that followed the heir to the throne’s second marriage to the daughter of a Colombian drugs baron before his coronation in 2...
The men came after him and caught him before he got to the bushes. He was floored by a heavy blow above his right kidney, then grabbed and hauled back to his feet. ‘The snooper.’ The big man Rovertos Bekakos had called Mr Kloutsis leaned in close. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Snooping,’ Mavros gas...
He was obviously being a lot more fastidious in his search than I was, though the fact that he hadn’t contacted me on the mobile meant he’d drawn a blank. After meeting Katharine, I ignored everything else and headed straight for the semi-ruined building. It was two days since she’d been out here...
The actress walked close, her shoulder brushing against his. ‘The night’s beautiful here,’ she said, stopping and looking up. ‘You can see every star sprinkled across the dome of the heavens.’ ‘Don’t you get that in LA?’ She laughed softly. ‘You obviously haven’t been. The city’s lit up like an o...