Flesh House
By Stuart MacBride
St. Martin’s, $24.95
ISBN: 978-0312-38263-6

In this bizarre and macabre novel, Stuart MacBride introduces us to a serial killer murdering and dismembering victims and distributing body parts into the food chain. The Aberdeen police are at their wit’s ends in identifying and capturing the perpetrator.

They do apprehend a man they believe to be “the Flesher” (he was captured and convicted 20 years before, but recently released on a technicality). While they have him in custody, the murders go on. Then members of the original investigation decades earlier begin to disappear and DS Logan McRae starts to think in new directions, despite the usual antics of DIs Insch and Steele.

Written with panache, the novel is fairly long and the reader is treated to all sorts of information about abattoirs and meat processing, perhaps more than one might wish for. But as murder mysteries go, this novel is right up there with the best of them, and it is highly recommended.

Review by THEODORE FEIT

©2009 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.