Cold Granite

Logan McRae, Book 1

By: Stuart MacBride

Narrated by: John Sessions

It's DS Logan McRae's first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn't get much worse. Four-year-old David Reid's body is discovered in a ditch - strangled, mutilated and a long time dead. There's a killer stalking the Granite City and the local media are baying for blood. If that wasn't enough, Logan also has to contend with a new boss, DI Insch, who doesn't suffer fools gladly and thinks everyone's a fool, and his own ex-girlfriend, the beautiful but chilly Isobel MacAlister, who also happens to be the chief pathologist. The only good news is WPC "Ball Breaker" Watson, Logan's new guardian angel.

The dead are piling up in the morgue almost as fast as the snow on the streets, and Logan knows time is running out. More children are going missing. More are going to die. If Logan isn't careful, he's going to end up joining them.

Set in Aberdeen, where the rainy season lasts all year, criminal gangs vie for supremacy on the streets, and the oil industry brings an influx of wealth and vice, this is a gritty, powerful debut thriller by a writer with a wonderfully observant eye and a characteristically Scottish sense of gallows humour.

©2005 Stuart MacBride (P)2005 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London, UK

Excellent! Stuart MacBride! Fantastic

Grisly gruesome ghastly kidnappings & murders in The Granite City, of Aberdeen Scotland. Lots of twist and turns. The Narration is superb! You won’t put this one down until the spine tingling end!
More! More! More!
UNABRIDGED PLEASE.

Compelling action. Wonderfully written.

My wife and I couldn't stop listening until story was done. Excellent writing and loved the performance. We are hooked and will be downloading the whole series.

Police procedural with a heart

First of a series and I’m hooked! I loved everything about this book. The characters felt real and it makes me want to read more by this author.

Love Logan

I've read a few of the other books in the series but it was great to listen to the first one and learn little things, like why he is called Lazarus- favourite part.

gritty, human, great fun

The characters are real people, who make mistakes, but keep trying. And the best part is, they are genuinely funny along the way. This is the first book i've listened to by this author, and have to say i thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is quite good, but it's really the odd cast of characters and their dialog that seemed so refreshing and interesting to me. The narration was excellent as well. Highly recommended.

Smash hit!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Without doubt! Another great book from Stuart Macbride!

What did you like best about this story?

I love the real life humor that Stuart interjects into the lives of the characters, which was masterfully narrated by John Sessions. The turns of phrases are just hilarious at times, even though the story involves grizzly murders.

Which scene was your favorite?

There were too many favorite scenes to pick just one, but I enjoyed the briefings with DCI Inch.

Any additional comments?

John Sessions performed the characters in the book so well. What a treat when books are cast so perfectly!

A gripping mystery narrated by a master actor!

This is my first encounter with the Aberdeen police world of Stuart MacBride, and you can count me a covert. The narration by John Sessions you forget the narrator altogether—all you hear is the story as if there were no intermediary. Wonderful!

Abridgment Doesn't Make A Difference

I love, love, love Stuart MacBride. This book is the first in the Logan MacRae series and, since I found it, I am now hooked! MacBride is a terrifically entertaining author; one of the best I have read. Until I found him, Nelson Demille was my favorite author in this genre. It's nice to have found another great one!
John Sessions performs this rather than just reading it. You can tell that he is a very good actor and really puts a lot of effort into his portrayals of the characters.
If you like detective fiction, with some dark humor thrown in, you will enjoy this book and the whole Logan MacRae series. And if you are not familiar with British slang you may want to brush up before reading this author.

Outstanding

Great book and marvelous narration. The plot is intricate and satisfying. The characters are credible and gritty. I was delighted to come across a new author, or new to me, whose writing has an authentic British flavour and whose characters seem to live on the page.

Excellent detective novel

This was a compelling, fast moving story. As a native Aberdonian, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I particularly enjoyed the fact that it was set in areas I was familiar with in Aberdeen. I would have given the narrator a full 5 stars, had he not pronounced rowies and Marischal Steet wrongly. Otherwise everything was very good.