Keep the Midnight Out by Alex Gray

The crime novels by Alex Gray feature Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer and psychological profiler Solomon Brightman, and are usually set in gritty Glasgow and the darker side of its society. In this book, the crime-solving duo’s fifteenth outing, Lorimer is on holiday with his wife on the island of Mull which they visit every summer and where, of all things, Lorimer finds a body.

Young Rory Dalgleish had been working at a nearby hotel, a posh kid with a loud voice who tended to annoy the locals. Lorimer finds himself caught up in the investigation, which is run by local DI, Stevie Crozier, who certainly doesn’t want him muscling in on her case.

But it is Lorimer the parents of the murdered boy turn to for comfort. And then there’s the fact that Rory looks such a lot like the victim in a similar case he worked on as a young DC. Both boys had been strangled and show signs of being tied up. Rigor mortis had set in revealing that they were hog-tied, but why had the murderer untied them before releasing them into the sea?

The story weaves back and forth between the two cases twenty years apart, the earlier case still unsolved. The reader also gains insight into what must have been a difficult time for young Lorimer, his wife pregnant with their first child in the heat of the summer, a child we know to have been still-born.

This is the first novel I have read by Alex Gray, and I confess to picking it up because I often enjoy books set on Scottish Islands. It is a fairly gentle murder mystery in that time and care has been given to developing the characters, both the locals and the police, and the psychological background to the murders. There is just enough description to give the reader a picture of the tranquil island setting, but there are bursts of action from time to time to keep the plot simmering.

I enjoyed the style of writing and the characters of Lorimer and Brightman so much I shall happily take the ferry to Oban and travel on to Glasgow to follow the rest of the series.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Keep the Midnight Out