Books: In the Blood By Margaret Kirk (2021)

 

Once again, I mention I happen to know the brother of writer Margaret Kirk.

“Tied to a derelict pier on Orkney, are the bloated remains of a man, just bobbing in the waves, all under the watchful shadow of the forbidding Sandisquoy House. The locals know him as William Spencer. But DCI Lukas Mahler identifies him as Alex Fleming – his former boss. Unable to step away from the case, Mahler tries to piece together why Fleming would retire to such a remote location. But the deeper he digs, the more disturbing the investigation becomes. Seal bones, witches’ salve, and runic symbols appear everywhere he looks, ushering Mahler towards Fleming’s most notorious unsolved case: the ‘Witchfinder’ murders. And towards a dark and uncomfortable truth someone has gone to great lengths to bury.”

In the Blood by Scottish author Margaret Kirk shows a lot growth. While her two other murder mysteries featuring DCI Lukas Mahler, Shadow Man and What Lies Buried, reads like a master writer in full control of her talents, this one takes it bit further. The book opens with the grisly (almost Stephen King in nature) scene with a dead man floating in the North Sea for some time. I’ve read many times that bodies found in water are generally the most gruesome to look at.

While I was once a huge fan of this genre in youth, I wandered away because a lot of what I was reading was to paint-by-numbers, with the killers revealing themselves because they made idiotic, basic mistakes. And that the cop, forensic specialist, the little old lady in the village, or some kids, always found out whodunit in less than believable way.

But what I like about this series is all (well, most) of her characters are three dimensional. Lukas Mahler is convincing leader; he’s tough, enigmatic, a man with darkness and light. Kirk delves a bit more into Mahler’s back-story, his guilt over what happened with his mother and father when he was a teenager (we’re bound to run into Daddy sometime in the future). I enjoyed this bit, because the first two books only hinted at the violence in his past. This also ties neatly into Mahler’s time at the MET and his hero-worships of Alex Fleming. It also gives a better understanding of why he suffers from migraines. Yes, his job has him under pressure (though this “episode” has his boss, June Wallace, out on medical leave and replaced by Chae Hunt, your handsome TV cliché Chief Inspector who worries more about budgets and how he’ll look on TV), but it's the guilt that seemly is all his causes. And like like a typical male, instead of seeking counseling, he let's it fester.

The rest of the regulars, especially Fergie and Naz are given more to do and I appreciate the long-running joke about Fergie’s Audi. Even Andy Black is more tolerable.

The book also focuses on legends of Scotland, especially in Orkney and Sandisquoy House (which is probably fictional, but based on something real). It tries to tip a bit into the supernatural, but never fully jumps in, but gets close with the folklore of Celtic and Norse mythology of the selkie, or seal folk, which revolves “around female selkies [seals] being coerced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their seal skin, thus exhibiting the tale motif of the swan maiden type.” 

However, I’m unsure of the epilogue, which has a previous bad guy broken out of jail (just like Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter) and who’ll probably menace both Mahler and Anna in the next book, and the mysterious Mr. Hollander, a wannabe James Bond villain in the making. I can see why this added, as the book ended quietly, which may had given readers the impression the series was over (despite there still being a few loose ends hanging around), but it seems, I guess, out of place? It’s certainly not the typical ending you see in this genre, but maybe Kirk is just upping things a bit?

Books: What Lies Buried By Margaret Kirk (2019)

Once again, I will note I happen to know the writers brother, so I’m still going to give my best review.

"Ten year-old Erin is missing; taken in broad daylight during a friend's birthday party. With no witnesses and no leads, DI Lukas Mahler races against time to find her. But is it already too late for Erin - and will her abductor stop at one stolen child? And the discovery of human remains on a construction site near Inverness confronts Mahler's team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant's murder linked to a nearby POW camp, or is there an even darker story to be uncovered? With his team stretched to the limit, Mahler's hunt for Erin's abductor takes him from Inverness to the Lake District. And decades-old family secrets link both cases in a shocking final twist."

What Lies Buried is the second Lukas Mahler story and is a gripping tale about an ugly, but very realistic subject of child abduction. There is also an additional sub-plots dealing with a 70 year-old murder and Mahler’s ongoing association with local crime boss Carl “Cazza” Mackay that gets a new wrinkle when it looks like someone is trying kill MacKay.

It’s a fast-paced story, and Kirk easily keeps all the threads of tale from unraveling –though I could do less with the Andy Black and his questionable tactics with his police work and his silly rivalry with Mahler.  While I understand the male ego, it’s very clear Andy’s moral compass is compromised and it irritates me that no one else see’s this. Maybe this is what cops do; ignore some of the other cops obvious flaws just because there is this “brotherhood” among them. And as clever as June Wallace, Mahler’s boss, I’m surprised how much she lets Black get away with. Sometimes I felt it made her a bit of a dim bulb. Also, I felt the whole issue with the Chief –Wallace’s boss- was too much Eastenders, to borrow a British soap opera title. Look, I understand that everyone wants things to be resolved nice and neat, and the press will hound police, but it all seems too predictable soap opera tropes.

This book also sets up the third yet-to-be-released third Lukas Mahler story, ending on a cliffhanger. This may explain why some story points are not resolved (unless I missed it), like why one of the girls who goes missing is later found dead. Why she died is never fully explained (though it’s later revealed that the girl’s disappearance is connected to events sometime prior), and there was no trauma on the girls body, so why was she murdered?

I liked the book, though and will look forward towards book three. But I do hope that Kirk winds down some of sub-plots (like who’s trying to destroy Cazza MacKay), as they do sometimes distract from the main plot.

Books: Shadow Man By Margaret Kirk (2018)

Before I start this review, I happen to know the authors brother, but I promise to give an honest review here.

“Two brutal killings rock Inverness, and bring ex-Met Detective Inspector Lukas Mahler the biggest challenge of his career. The body of the queen of daytime TV, Morven Murray is discovered by her sister, Anna, on the morning of her wedding day. But does Anna know more about the murder than she's letting on? Police informant Kevin Ramsay's murder looks like a gangland-style execution. But what could he have stumbled into that was dangerous enough to get him violently killed? Mahler has only a couple of weeks to solve both cases while dealing with his mother's fragile mental health. But caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, is ex-Met DI Lukas Mahler hunting one killer, or two?”

The Shadow Man is well written whodunit from newcomer Margaret Kirk.  Much of its success lies within an atmospheric setting, with believable, fully rounded characters and a narrative that speeds it way through, dropping a few MacGuffins here and there to keep the readers guessing. In many ways, the book felt like a well-established series than the first of what could be multiple volumes.

With the tale set in Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, we get a whodunit that does not reinvent the formula, but gives it an interesting bent (though getting Val McDermid –known as the Queen of Scottish crime thrillers- to give you a quote on the cover is certainly a great way to start your career) that I found I liked. Mahler is flawed but likable Detective Inspector, one who has returned home for family commitments, after spending time in the “big city.” He has an intriguing past, which Kirk slowly delves out as the hunt for a killer proceeds. While I was over half-way through the book before I figured out who the killer was, I will admit that I appreciated the writers’ ability to send us off in a different direction, to make us think that the killer is someone obvious. Not many authors who pen these whodunits these days take the time to lead us astray like this. I also appreciated that detectives were able to piece the puzzle of who the killer was by detective work, and not through the killer making an obvious slip-up or leaving a crucial piece of evidence. Still, a lot of these thrillers do live at the corner of Convenience and Coincidence and while there some of that here, it's not that obvious.

Of course, as an American reading a Scottish written book, and like a lot of British writers I’ve read over the years, some of the slang and colloquialism is difficult to understand, but that should not distract a reader (and I was amused that Kirk used the name of Dr. Galbraith early in the book, which seemed a nod to Harry Potter writer JK Rowlings, who use a non de plume of Robert Galbriath for her own series of mysteries. Whether that was unintentional, it made me smile). I also wonder if Kirk will bring her detective Mahler (and right-hand man Fergie) to San Diego in future novels, as this is where her brother lives. It would be fun to see that!

After three whodunits in a row –and three mystery novels where the main character has a nemesis that is not part of the central narrative but is the thorn in the detectives sides- I’m going to back to my beloved science fiction (though Rowling just released the fourth book in her Cormoran Strike series, so I'm bound to pick that up). But I think that Kirk has written a fine novel, one that is dark and bitter, full of interesting and flawed heroes. I look forward to her next one.