Open Season (Bob Skinner Book 34)

Product Information

Early hours of New Years Day and Bob Skinner gets a call to arms. He is summoned to Torpichen Police Station where two people have been found shot dead in car abandoned outside. But if that wasn't bad enough, the two bodies are very familiar... former Detective Terry Coates and Inspector Griff Montell who used to date Bob's daughter Alexis. Jardine has a style of writing that draws the reader in, together with an excellent handle on the workings of Scotland’s police force. He keeps the reader engaged throughout both with the story line and the characters – many of whom have been with him since the start of the series and it’s always interesting to see these develop.

The police are also searching two countries for traces of a mysterious crime novelist who appears to have vanished. Has the faking of his own death been his masterpiece? I would also describe this story as rip-roaring - just when you think, as a reader, you've been done out of a story one emerges and the ending will surprise everyone. But again, you will have to read the next book to find out what happens, ha ha.

This is number 33 in the Bob Skinner series – if it’s not a series you are familiar with, I would highly recommend it if you enjoy crime fiction. The novel is told mostly from Bob Skinner’s first person point of view. This is interesting as I never really understand where he is coming from. He always seems so many steps ahead of the rest and sees angles no one else could conceive. It seems exhausting. At the same time he is a family man, albeit rather unreconstructed with the job coming first. I found the novel intriguing in both investigations. The Glasgow murder has top level connections that foreshadow trouble and that proves to be the case. It has a few neat twists that surprised me at every turn and a wee bit of humour to keep it real. It’s great stuff. The deaths of the pensioners is intriguing in a different way, chiefly because if it is murder, why? That’s where the clever comes in. I think the solution to this mystery is ingenious and inventive. I would like to thank Netgalley and Headline for an advance copy of The Roots of Evil, the thirty second novel to feature former Chief Constable Bob Skinner, set in Edinburgh.

So once you have been taken down the most complex of family trees and “Super Bob” has once again been the power behind the two murders being solved you are still left with the unsolved Glasgow case. And Bob Skinner himself. Well, he is the gift that keeps on giving. Not the stereotypical MC but he has had his fair share of personal tragedy which has both expanded his ever growing family and made him a wiser man all told. I really do love my time spent seeing what he is up to next which is why the only bad thing about this book is the fact that now I have a long wait for the next one! Is Quentin going to stretch this story over two books or do we just assume that “the sample” will prove fruitful and that it’s the usual slam dunk. Unlikely as old smug boy Skinner wasn’t in at the kill and that is very unlikely. Alongside each inquiry as it evolves is former Chief Constable Sir Robert Skinner, relishing his new role as a media magnate, but drawn into reluctant action and towards a chilling discovery of his own.When struggling ex-copper Terry Coats was discovered in bed with an air hostess, his excuse that he was 'going undercover' cut no ice with the force - or his wife. But now he's been brutally killed on Hogmanay night, it seems there may have been more to his plea.