Despite the title, I knew nothing of Chris Longmuir’s book until it arrived on the doormat and, if I’m honest, I was slightly shocked at tone and subject and language that this mild mannered lovely lady lets loose with on the page. Chris writes great female characters, victims and cops, but she also writes great villains, dealers, pimps and killers, and her scenes of crime, post mortems and conflicts are all handled very well. The characters are well-rounded and several could easily be seen to transfer into a possible series should she choose to. And talking of series, I always like cheeky references to other authors to make their characters fictional in the ‘real’ world of a new author’s book, so the reference to a character reading the latest Ian Rankin Rebus book was a nice touch. The tale itself is set in Dundee amongst the world of prostitution and drugs and a serial killer who is leaving his victims in Templeton Woods, believing them to be required as sacrifices to the trees there. The two crime worlds collide when young mother and prostitute Kara heads out to make money to pay a local gangster, Tony, back a debt owed to him and she finds herself in the woods with the killer’s victims – one of whom is Tony’s own daughter. The Police investigation is headed up by newcomer to the area, Louise Walker and her team, and their search for the killer and involvement with Kara’s children who are taken into care is all handled with care and skill right through to the closing pages. My favourite scene in the whole book has to be where a character has spotted the killer within a room and runs screaming away – but it’s a room full of all the possible suspects, leaving the Police and the reader scratching heads as to which one of them it may have been. An excellent police procedural but a lot more besides – I really hope it’s not long before the next book comes along from Chris. I would certainly buy a copy and would highly recommend DEAD WOOD. Keith

Dead Wood is the second in Chris Longmuir’s Dundee Crime series, and a winner of the Dundee International Book Prize. Kara thinks it’s bad enough that two thugs are after her because her waster of a boyfriend owes their boss money. That is, until she escapes their clutches in the hands of the man who drags her into Templeton woods in the middle of the night. What she finds there has strange echoes of a murder case from the 1970s. And for some of the police and social workers caught up in the case, it will drag them back into boyhood nightmares. Inspired by a real life case from 1979, Dead Wood is a smart, scary and fast-paced police procedural. The novel makes effective use of multiple points of view to ramp up the drama. We see Kara, the young mother at the heart of the story, running scared from the thugs, from the killer, from the authorities. The drugs boss, who now has more than one reason to track Kara down. The police who, as past collides with present, may have reason to suspect one of their own. And peppered throughout, glimpses of the killer, whose warped mind serves as the will of Templeton Wood itself. With so many characters at play, it would be easy for them to become two dimensional. But Longmuir creates strong individuals with their own quirks. Just when, like one of the young female coppers, we dare to feel sorry for the drugs boss Palmer, she finds a way to remind us how unpleasant he really is. The working girl Kara turns to for help is kind, but no ‘whore with a heart of gold.’ As all the best crime novels should be, Dead Wood is deeply rooted in its location. Even if we have never been to Dundee, we walk its streets along with the characters, explore its dark alleys, climb its hills, crawl through the dense undergrowth of Templeton Wood (and possibly feel the need for a good wash afterwards). And excellent read for all lovers of Tartan Noir.

“Dead Wood” is the best book I have read for some time. Thrillers are supposed to grab you from the outset and keep you enthralled right to the end and “Dead Wood” most certainly did that for me. I think the main reason I enjoyed this book so much more than other thrillers I have read recently is because I really cared about Kara, the central character, it mattered to me what happened to her and that kept me rooting for her all the way through the book! Add to that the fact that the book is beautifully written and flows easily, which allows you to concentrate on the story rather than the process of reading and you have a brilliant book At no point did I sense the writer behind the story trying to lead me along a certain path - rather, I felt I was reading a true story, one so real that it couldn’t have just been invented, one where I felt I was actually there, observing the events as they happened. It is a great book and I can, without the slightest hesitation, heartily recommend “Dead Wood” to anyone who likes an engaging thriller that will keep you hooked to the very end. I absolutely loved it!