Customer Reviews

Blind Eye (Logan McRae)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read all MacBride's Logan novels and this one was a welcome return to form. The last one, Flesh House, while good was very violent and dark - a real departure from earlier outings. While Blind Eye isn't short on the more vicious aspects of the crimes committed (the title is a major clue), I'm happy to say the overall tone is considerably lighter than the past few entries and much more in line with the first book, Cold Granite. Another reviewer felt the banter between Logan and his crass, lesbian boss Steel was far-fetched and weak. I respect the reviewer's opionion but strongly disagree - I laughed out loud several times during their exchanges...especially when Steel and her partner want children and she practically orders Logan to volunteer his "services"! I delighted in this scruffy, oddball duo with their warped yet winning cameraderie (if you can even call it that). Yes you have to suspend disbelief to a certain degree - after all, nearly everyone in the book - good and bad guys - are barmy, but that is what makes it all the more enjoyable a read!

In Aberdeen, Scotland, Det. Sgt. Logan "Laz" McRae is investigating a series of attacks on Polish immigrants. The attacker gouges out their eyes, cauterizes the eyes and leaves them in their injured state. One note that was left stated that the Poles have taken our jobs, our women and our God. The attacker is given the nickhame Oedipus.

As this case is being investigated, one of Aberdeen's major crime bosses is found with his eyes gouged out in the same manner. Shortly afterwards a large quantity of weapons and ammunition is found. Police fear that this could be preparation for an all out gang war to take over the gang leader's operation.

Logan is under the strick disciplinarian, DCI Finnie, who never seems satisfied with Logan's work. Logan also works with Det. Inspector Steel, a fiesty lesbian officer who needs a curse box to donate to because she curses so much. She's currently under stress because she and her partner, Susan, have been turned down for adoption and now Steel wants Logan to donate the sperm needed for artificial insemination.

This is a madcap police procedural. Since the police in Scotland don't normally carry guns, there are a number of skirmishes that could have involved the Three Stooges; police officer hit with a beer bottle, kicked in the crotch and shot at without rear of return fire.

There's lots of action presented in a realistic manner where the reader gets to see the mistakes that police, who are human, can make. McRae is an excellent protagonist with a strong sense of right and wrong. He's moral, determined and as relentless as a hungry pit-bull.

Although Aberdeen, Scotland Detective Sergeant. Logan McRae is still healing from the brutal Flesh House case he investigates nasty hate crime assaults on Polish immigrants; even the cops are horrified with what has happened to the eyes of the victims. DCI Finnie believes the prime suspect Gilchrist is a malcontent who loathes the influx of foreigners from East Europe for taking the jobs away from locals.

However, Logan wonders if something else is the motive beyond the attacks when even a crime boss is beaten. Instead Logan considers a mob war between Scottish mobsters and Polish gangsters while Finnie tells him to stop thinking as that is not standard operating procedure for a DS. Meanwhile, McRae feels a double whammy when Finnie punishes him by sticking him with loud mouth Detective Inspector Roberta Steele to keep witness Rory Simpson, a pedophile, safe from an angry female stalker.

This is a strong Scottish police procedural that is owned by Logan but contains a deep support ensemble especially the cops. The investigation is cleverly devised so that Logan is once again an outsider in trouble with his superiors especially pompous Finnie. Fans will enjoy his latest case as he works around the bureaucrats to solve the hate crimes. His back case load is also worth reading (see BLOODSHOT, DYING LIGHT and COLD GRANITE).

Harriet Klausner

Someone is preying on Aberdeen's growing Polish community. Men are found abandoned, barely alive, on building sites with their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. Threatening letters arriving at police headquarters make it clear that the attacks will continue.

The victims are too scared to talk to police, and the only witness is a paedophile on the run. Grampian Police are not making much progress in capturing the offender they have tagged Oedipus. There is another big case happening at the same time (involving firearms) and Detective Sergeant Logan (`Lazarus' or `Laz') McRae has his hands full. McRae is also hoping for a promotion: one of the Detective Inspectors is about to retire, and catching Oedipus could only enhance his chances.

This is an interesting, and at times brutal, police procedural. There is plenty of action, mostly in Aberdeen but also in Poland. There are also some juicy red herrings, some fascinating personal challenges (especially for DS McRae and Detective Inspector Roberta Steel). This is not a novel for the squeamish, but it does have some delightful humour.

I am reading this series out of order, and this is my first exposure to DS McRae and his superior officer, DI Roberta Steel. It won't be the last: these are characters worth exploring and I'll be tracking down the earlier four novels.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

First Line: Waiting was the worst bit: hunkered back against the wall, eyes squinting in the setting sun, waiting for the nod.

There's strange goings-on in Aberdeen in this fifth outing by Detective Sergeant Logan McRae. For one thing, it's summer, and the folks in Aberdeen, Scotland don't seem to be familiar with sunshine or warmth. For another thing, the Polish immigrant community is being targeted in a series of gruesome attacks, and McRae actually gets to leave the country to follow up on leads. Most people seem to think these attacks are hate crimes against the Polish, but when a local crime boss is targeted, McRae begins to wonder if something else might be going on.

Other than that, the situation seems to be normal: The Detective Chief Inspector seems to have it in for our lad and Detective Inspector Steele continues to go out of her way to make his life miserable. Even though I'd love to slap her briskly about the head and shoulders most of the time, I do like the character of Steele: she serves to remind people that men don't have the politically incorrect slob market cornered.

The story moves right along at a good pace, but I'm beginning to notice a change in McRae. Through four books the young man has been unerringly idealistic no matter what is done to him or how many idiotic superiors try to break him. There has been plenty of humor to break the gruesome case load into manageable portions.

Not so much in this one. The humor is less, and all the characters seem grimmer. With the lack of humor, the violence of the villains isn't as well disguised and isn't as easy to stomach.

How many more infinitely inferior superiors must McRae go through before he leaves the force? Give the poor man a promotion, an entire weekend off, and transfer D.I. Steele!

I really liked the first half of the book--it was classic Stuart MacBride, where nothing goes quite right, and what goes wrong goes spectacularly, muddily, soddenly wrong. Then his hero, Logan MacRae, was sent off to Poland and the plot got very silly for a while. Suddenly there were big explosions and there was lots of chaos and mayhem. That didn't make it a bad read--just not as good as the first half of the book. MacBride mostly reeled it back in by the end, and the final chapter is just lovely and gruesome. Unlike some other readers, I like it when MacBride gets enthusiastic about the blood and gore. This one wasn't as gruesome as his previous novel, but that's okay.

Detective Sergeant Logan ("Lazarus," or just "Laz" for short) McRae, of the Grampian Police, has his first big case in six months. It's been longer than that since his last, disastrous, one. And the present one isn't going well.

There are actually two big cases going on. One has to do with a caravan full of heavy-duty firepower. And the fear is that there is a turf war in the offing. The second one poses a more imminent problem. Six businessmen in the area have been attacked, in the most horrific way imaginable, having their eyes gouged out and the optic nerve and eye sockets burned. All the victims have been Polish, indicative of the anger, resentment and just plain racism at work in the community, mirroring hate crimes arising out of the issue of immigration and hatred of immigrants, both legal and otherwise, extant in many parts of the world.

McRae lives and works in Aberdeen [the author's place of residence as well]. He is tempted to begin a new relationship with another member of the police force, but is a little out of practice. He also is hoping for a promotion, since a Detective Inspector is about to retire and McRae is one of three thought to be in line for the job. But first he must catch the man they call "Oedipus." His DCI thinks he is a natural for it, given his "experience with serial weirdoes."

Detective Inspector Steel is going through her own personal issues, describing herself as "a forty-three-year-old lesbian chain-smoker who swears like a f***ing sailor and boozes it up every night." They make for an interesting team. Once again Mr. MacBride gives the reader a sometimes brutal but always interesting police procedural, sure to please his growing number of fans as well as gaining him new ones. Recommended.

Stuart Macbride has become my favorite author and nobody does it better. Blind Eye is more in line with Cold Granite than Flesh House - it's incredible exciting and a bit lighter than Flesh House, though no less absorbing. Logan McRae's personality is getting more and more developed and we see a lighter, dare I say comic side of his boss Roberta Steele. Not to be a spoiler but Logan's soul and morals are bared in this book in a surprising, but believable way. It's a long read - 516 pages - but well worth the hours you spend. Thank you Mr. MacBride. Please keep it up!

If this is your first MacBride novel, then some of the character and story references won't be clear, because he's chosen not to rehash, to let new readers step in easily mid stream. Even if you have read them, the first couple of chapters make big character leaps narratively in relation to previous volumes. Those things aside, this is the most even keeled and readable of his novels.

The drawback for someone like me who has read them all and likes procedurals (policiers) is that there's nothing new here - nothing! The same old characters doing the same old things, i.e., no development, no learning; the same old serial murder story in new clothes, as if MacBride is incapable of writing about anything else; the same old violent climatic ending, with central character Logan McRae getting himself and others brushed up, then miraculously escaping; and the same old wandering ~500 pages. Next to, say, Donna Leon's Brunetti and Venice police, MacBride has allowed himself to be a superficial bore. My hunch is that he could be better than this, if he tried. MacBride likes to joke in the intro about the reaction of Aberdeen's tourism bureau to his books. What they should be unhappy about is not the picture of crime his stories present, but the total superficiality of characters that inhabit his Aberdeen.

Stuart MacBride seems to be heading rapidly downmarket. I enjoyed his first three novels, but this one, like his previous one, has lots of gruesome and gory detail. I wouldn't have a problem with that if the plot and the storytelling maintained a standard similar to that achieved in the early novels. But in this one the plot is a real hotchpotch with extra ingredients continually being thrown in to keep the pot boiling.
The character of DI Steel is becoming less and less credible for a senior police officer and her dialogue with DS McRae, though often amusing, is also frequently trite and unfunny in this story. The weaker material should have been edited out.
And towards the end, the main villain makes an unbelievable decision amidst a confused morass of events that hardly constitute a climax.
I got no feeling of satisfaction when I came to the end and I suspect this will be the last novel I read by this author.