DARK WATER - Caro Ramsay

Okay, so I'm a more than a bit of a fan of Caro Ramsay for a lot of reasons.  DARK WATER is her third book, featuring a number of ongoing characters, but somehow there's not quite a feeling of a series about these.  If you've not read ABSOLUTION, the first book, that will probably sound a bit odd - but let's just say at the end of that book something I've always thought of as quite brave from an author happens.  The second book SINGING TO THE DEAD has to move on as a result, and again here, we've got a slight switch in the pairings, the characters and the goings on in this book.

We are talking Tartan Noir here - so there is the obligatory setting of dense fog, cold and a series of violent deaths that seem to have all the markings of a serial killer.  There's also a former beauty queen, her mentally ill sister, a rather attractive photographer and his well dodgy assistant and a healthy sprinkling of odd types hanging around the edges.  Adding to the obligatory list is the team being stuffed around by their bosses and all, some romantic tension in the ranks, a rookie who is prepared ot push the boundaries and the required tension within any well functioning police team.

Sounds all very predictable doesn't it.  Luckily in Ramsay's hands there's an edge, a certain something that makes the basic elements of a Tartan Noir police procedural just that little bit better than you'd think.  When I say I'm a bit of a fan - I'm talking a very very big bit.