Showing results by narrator "James Macpherson" in All Categories

They call him the Wolfman - because he takes a nip out of his victims and because they found the first victim in the East End's lonely Wolf Street. But there's no urban predator that Rebus fears. When Scotland Yard are anxious to find the last serial killer on their patch they look north and soon Rebus is on his way south from the chill of Edinburgh to the rain of London.

DI Colin Anderson is having a bad week. His conviction of paedophile Skelpie Fairbairn is declared unsafe, putting Fairbairn back on Glasgow's streets. Then a succession of strange crimes - a gangster torched alive; a teenage boy tortured then dropped off a bridge; a police suicide; a young girl tied to the river bank and left for the tide – leave Anderson with his hands full and questioning whether this array of evils are all, somehow, linked.

Winner of the British Book Awards, Crime Thriller of the Year, 2007.
It's now a crucial time for Rebus. His superiors are getting increasingly impatient with his erratic behaviour, and his relationship with Siobhan becomes ever more complicated. And, most worryingly of all, as Rebus grows older, he is starting to feel closer to the criminals he fights than the force he works for.

When DI Anderson and DS Costello are called to investigate the discovery of a body in a Glasgow attic they soon identify the victim as a suspect in a decade-old case: the rape and attempted murder of a young student by two men. But where is the dead man's accomplice, 'Mr Click'? When another young woman is brutally attacked, detectives Anderson and Costello realise this psychopath has started working once more....

It's Christmas, and half the Partickhill police squad is down with flu. Not good timing, with a series of cyanide poisonings in the area, plus two small boys reported missing in the space of a few days. And then there's the monumental task of providing concert security for rock legend Rogan O'Neill.

Glasgow, 1984: It looked like a simple job. Guarding a woman - nameless and almost faceless after a savage acid attack - at a Glasgow hospital. PC Alan McAlpine has no idea that this simple job will haunt his career and change his life forever.

A few days before the summer solstice, a 92-year-old woman is found burned to death in her home. On the same day, a man's mutilated corpse is discovered, his arms ripped from their sockets, with a tarot card depicting the Fool inserted in his mouth. When the victim is identified as someone for whom the police have been looking for almost a year, detectives Anderson and Costello find themselves caught up in a case where nothing is as it seems.

Iain Banks, aka Iain M Banks, came to fame in 1984 with his transfixing debut The Wasp Factory, described as both ‘a work of unparalleled depravity’ and 'a masterpiece'. In 1993 he was acknowledged as one of the Best of Young British Writers, and his numerous bestselling books include The Crow Road, Complicity and the ‘Culture’ sci-fi series. Collected here are three of his best works, as heard on BBC Radio.

A student has gone missing in Edinburgh - completely out of character. She's not just any student, though, but the daughter of extremely well-to-do and influential bankers. There's almost nothing to go on, until Detective Inspector John Rebus gets an unmistakable gut feeling that there's more to this than just another runaway spaced out on unaccustomed freedom, or worse. Two leads emerge: a carved wooden doll in a toy coffin, found in the student's home village, and an Internet role-playing game.

When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder. Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece together the most complex and confusing of jigsaws. But not everyone wants the puzzle solved - perhaps not even Rebus himself.

An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme. Is it a racist attack, or something else? Rebus is drawn into the case, but he has other problems: his old police station has closed, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around. As Rebus investigates, he must visit an asylum seekers' detention centre, deal with the sleazy Edinburgh underworld, and maybe even fall in love. Meanwhile, Siobhan has problems of her own.

For the right man, all doors are open ... Mike Mackenzie is a self-made man with too much time on his hands and a bit of the devil in his soul. He is looking for something to liven up the days and perhaps give new meaning to his existence. A chance encounter at an art auction offers him the opportunity to do just that as he settles on a plot to commit a "perfect crime".

Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. Complaints and Conduct Department, to give them their full title, but known colloquially as 'the Dark Side', or simply 'The Complaints'. Malcolm Fox works for The Complaints. He's just had a result, and should be feeling good about himself....but there's a cop called Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. Problem is, no one can prove it.

Inspector John Rebus must disinter all four cases to nail just one killer who might just lead back to the infamous Bible John. And do it while facing the glare of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big, and with TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice. One mistake is likely to mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse still, losing his job.

A missing private investigator is found locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still - both for his family and the police - is that his body was in an area that had already been searched. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled and now - after a decade without answers - it's time for the truth.