Un mattino da cani by Christopher Brookmyre

The whole Scandinoir industry is a case in point would Harry Hole be such a wreck if he lived on the Costa del Sol? So, too, it goes with Tartan Noir. There's something about the far northern latitudes - the weather, perhaps? - that seems to bring out the noir in the writers who live there. I’m thrilled to see this is the first in a series as I will definitely check out the later books. And it’s not at all apparent how they will. The story alternates between the two women and it’s a long while before their stories intersect. The book moves at a strong, steady pace with no down time.

Brookmyre has a real knack for descriptions. This book packs on the humor with many turns of phrase. “Catherine had often taken an odd kind of solace from considering her job analogous with that of the binmen of Glasgow.” I adored both of them - Jasmine forced to learn on the fly when her uncle goes missing and Catherine, trying to maneuver through police politics having missed out on a promotion she thought should have been hers. Then, we have Catherine, a Detective Superintendent. First, we have Jasmine, a self described screw up who has been reduced to helping her uncle with his PI business in Glasgow. It’s been a while since I’ve been introduced to such colorful characters. Cautiously tracing an accomplished killer's footsteps, Jasmine stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real, and her only lead points to Glen Fallan, a gangland enforcer and professional assassin whose reputation is rendered only slightly less terrifying by having been dead for twenty years.

Elsewhere in the city, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - earning a crust working for her uncle Jim's private investigation business.

Either way she looks at it, she recognises that the discovery of a dead drug-dealer in a back alley is merely a portent of further deaths to come. It's a lesson that has served her well, but Glasgow is also a dangerous place to make assumptions. Detective Catherine McLeod was always taught that in Glasgow, they don't do whodunit.

Un mattino da cani by Christopher Brookmyre