Skinner's Trail - Quintin Jardine

I picked up this 1994 Armada paperback, at my work, where we have a kind of lending library. People bring in and take away books from the shelves for reading at lunch times or when travelling. As I was about to go to the airport and forgotten to bring a book of my own I picked this from the shelf as the best of a bad bunch. I was actually quite curious to read a Quintin Jardine book as he is a local author and actually been to the nearby high school presenting prizes at the end of term but the books had never come my way - it being against my principles to buy new books. I read the notices in ... more

Robert Skinner is an Assistant Chief Constable of the police force in Edinburgh. At this stage in his life, things could not be going much better. Fairly recently married, and now a father again with his second wife Sarah, he is absolutely thrilled with how life is going, but he is still the workaholic of old, and deeply involved in solving crime. The first chapter sees the murder of a local man Anthony Manson. Manson is a man known to the police for being involved in vice and possibly drugs, and his death is predicted to cause a fight within the local criminals about who might take charge ... more

This is the third book in the series and the life and times of Bob Skinner are moving on from the last book. At least nine months have passed, the book starts with the birth of James Andrew Skinner, lovingly referred to as Jazz. As usual there is a murder, or as it turns out a double murder. Despite only having given birth a few hours prviously, Sarah attends the first murder, that of the Big Man of Edinburgh to confirm death. The team then discover the second murder and connect the two, the likely suspect being the husband, recently released from prison, who has absconded to Spain. Then, at a ... more