The Night Watch - Neil Lancaster

Notorious criminal Scott Paterson is found dead a few days after being found "not proven to be guilty" in court. The murder is brutal and there is almost no evidence to be found. How could anyone have overpowered this giant without any struggle? The situation gets stranger when the man's lawyer is found having committed suicide, even though he was a newlywed on honeymoon. DS Max Craigie and his team try their best to find out what really happened to both men, however time is ticking and it seems that the killer is not going to stop without getting caught. But how do you catch someone who seems to know a lot about the way police work, almost as if they are police themselves...?

This was the first book in the series of Scottish detective Max Craigie I read. Even though I didn't read the previous two books, I didn't have any problem following the story. It did get me a little while to start really getting into the story, but once I did, I flew through the story. The writing style was nice and I loved that we got to see the killer's point of view every now and then in short one-page chapters. I liked the characters a lot and I especially liked that the were clearly Scottish, which is something I haven't seen that much in literature. I did think Lancaster could have been a bit more clear about what the abbreviations of certain police terms. Since I am not very familiar with those abreviations, I did have to look up some of them to know what exactly he was talking about.

Over all, I really liked the story and the characters. I am certainly looking forward to reading more of Lancaster's work. 4 stars!

Thanks very much to the author and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Stars: 4

Period of reading: 02/09 - 08/09

New words I learned:

• ebullient: very happy and enthusiastic

TW: suicide (+ usual thriller TWs)