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IF anyone is in the prime position to fill the commercial vacuum left by the winding up of the Rankin and Rebus double act, it's Stuart MacBride and Detective Sergeant Logan McRae. However, four books into a series featuring a recurring policeman, some grisly murders and a Scottish city for a backdrop (Aberdeen rather than Edinburgh), MacBride could be accused of merely ticking the tartan-noir boxes in the hope of catching some of Rankin's reader overspill.
MacBride is well aware of the baggage that comes with any attempt to increase the canon of Scottish crime fiction; he knowingly gave the Rebus novel Black And Blue partly set in Aberdeen a kinky cameo role in his most recent novel, Broken Skin (it's the calling card for the Grampian S&M set). However, where Rankin is, metaphorically speaking, content to chap on the door before forcing the lock, MacBride kicks it open with a size 14 boot then splashes around in the crime scene's puddles of blood.
Cold Granite, his debut, featured a serial child...