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Logan McRae #4-6
Flesh House / Blind Eye / Dark Blood
Books 4, 5 and 6 in the No.1 bestselling crime series by the award-winning Stuart MacBride.
FLESH HOUSE: Twenty years ago ‘The Flesher’ was butchering people all over the UK – turning his victims into oven-ready joints – until Grampian’s finest put him away. But eleven years later he was out on appeal. Now he’s missing and people are dying again. DS Logan McRae is on the case, and twenty years of secrets and lies are being dragged into the light. Only one thing is certain – Aberdeen will never be the same again.
BLIND EYE: Someone’s preying on Aberdeen’s growing Polish population. The pattern is always the same: men abandoned on building sites, barely alive, their eyes gouged out and the sockets burned. With the victims too scared to talk, Grampian Police is getting nowhere fast. The attacks are brutal, they keep on happening, and soon DS Logan McRae will have to decide how far he’s prepared to bend the rules to get a result.
DARK BLOOD: Richard Knox has served his time, so why shouldn’t he be allowed to live wherever he wants? Yes, in the past he was a violent rapist, but he’s seen the error of his ways. Found God. Wants to leave his dark past in Newcastle behind him and make a new start. Or so he says.
Detective Sergeant Logan McRae isn’t exactly thrilled to be part of the team helping Knox settle into his new Aberdeen home. He’s even less thrilled to be stuck with DSI Danby from Northumbria Police – the man who put Knox behind bars for ten years – supposedly here to ‘keep an eye on things’. Only things are about to go very, very wrong…
- GenresCrime
1294 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 8, 2013
83 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Stuart MacBride
87 books2,722 followersAka Stuart B. MacBride
The life and times of a bearded write-ist.
Stuart MacBride (that's me) was born in Dumbarton -- which is Glasgow as far as I'm concerned -- moving up to Aberdeen at the tender age of two, when fashions were questionable. Nothing much happened for years and years and years: learned to play the recorder, then forgot how when they changed from little coloured dots to proper musical notes (why the hell couldn't they have taught us the notes in the first bloody place? I could have been performing my earth-shattering rendition of 'Three Blind Mice' at the Albert Hall by now!); appeared in some bizarre World War Two musical production; did my best to avoid eating haggis and generally ran about the place a lot.
Next up was an elongated spell in Westhill -- a small suburb seven miles west of Aberdeen -- where I embarked upon a mediocre academic career, hindered by a complete inability to spell and an attention span the length of a gnat's doodad.
And so to UNIVERSITY, far too young, naive and stupid to be away from the family home, sharing a subterranean flat in one of the seedier bits of Edinburgh with a mad Irishman, and four other bizarre individuals. The highlight of walking to the art school in the mornings (yes: we were students, but we still did mornings) was trying not to tread in the fresh bloodstains outside our front door, and dodging the undercover CID officers trying to buy drugs. Lovely place.
But university and I did not see eye to eye, so off I went to work offshore. Like many all-male environments, working offshore was the intellectual equivalent of Animal House, only without the clever bits. Swearing, smoking, eating, more swearing, pornography, swearing, drinking endless plastic cups of tea... and did I mention the swearing? But it was more money than I'd seen in my life! There's something about being handed a wadge of cash as you clamber off the minibus from the heliport, having spent the last two weeks offshore and the last two hours in an orange, rubber romper suit / body bag, then blowing most of it in the pubs and clubs of Aberdeen. And being young enough to get away without a hangover.
Then came a spell of working for myself as a graphic designer, which went the way of all flesh and into the heady world of studio management for a nation-wide marketing company. Then some more freelance design work, a handful of voiceovers for local radio and video production companies and a bash at being an actor (with a small 'a'), giving it up when it became clear there was no way I was ever going to be good enough to earn a decent living.
It was about this time I fell into bad company -- a blonde from Fife who conned me into marrying her -- and started producing websites for a friend's fledgling Internet company. From there it was a roller coaster ride (in that it made a lot of people feel decidedly unwell) from web designer to web manager, lead programmer, team lead and other assorted technical bollocks with three different companies, eventually ending up as a project manager for a global IT company.
But there was always the writing (well, that's not true, the writing only started two chapters above this one). I fell victim to that most dreadful of things: peer pressure. Two friends were writing novels and I thought, 'why not? I could do that'.
Took a few years though...
The life and times of a bearded write-ist.
Stuart MacBride (that's me) was born in Dumbarton -- which is Glasgow as far as I'm concerned -- moving up to Aberdeen at the tender age of two, when fashions were questionable. Nothing much happened for years and years and years: learned to play the recorder, then forgot how when they changed from little coloured dots to proper musical notes (why the hell couldn't they have taught us the notes in the first bloody place? I could have been performing my earth-shattering rendition of 'Three Blind Mice' at the Albert Hall by now!); appeared in some bizarre World War Two musical production; did my best to avoid eating haggis and generally ran about the place a lot.
Next up was an elongated spell in Westhill -- a small suburb seven miles west of Aberdeen -- where I embarked upon a mediocre academic career, hindered by a complete inability to spell and an attention span the length of a gnat's doodad.
And so to UNIVERSITY, far too young, naive and stupid to be away from the family home, sharing a subterranean flat in one of the seedier bits of Edinburgh with a mad Irishman, and four other bizarre individuals. The highlight of walking to the art school in the mornings (yes: we were students, but we still did mornings) was trying not to tread in the fresh bloodstains outside our front door, and dodging the undercover CID officers trying to buy drugs. Lovely place.
But university and I did not see eye to eye, so off I went to work offshore. Like many all-male environments, working offshore was the intellectual equivalent of Animal House, only without the clever bits. Swearing, smoking, eating, more swearing, pornography, swearing, drinking endless plastic cups of tea... and did I mention the swearing? But it was more money than I'd seen in my life! There's something about being handed a wadge of cash as you clamber off the minibus from the heliport, having spent the last two weeks offshore and the last two hours in an orange, rubber romper suit / body bag, then blowing most of it in the pubs and clubs of Aberdeen. And being young enough to get away without a hangover.
Then came a spell of working for myself as a graphic designer, which went the way of all flesh and into the heady world of studio management for a nation-wide marketing company. Then some more freelance design work, a handful of voiceovers for local radio and video production companies and a bash at being an actor (with a small 'a'), giving it up when it became clear there was no way I was ever going to be good enough to earn a decent living.
It was about this time I fell into bad company -- a blonde from Fife who conned me into marrying her -- and started producing websites for a friend's fledgling Internet company. From there it was a roller coaster ride (in that it made a lot of people feel decidedly unwell) from web designer to web manager, lead programmer, team lead and other assorted technical bollocks with three different companies, eventually ending up as a project manager for a global IT company.
But there was always the writing (well, that's not true, the writing only started two chapters above this one). I fell victim to that most dreadful of things: peer pressure. Two friends were writing novels and I thought, 'why not? I could do that'.
Took a few years though...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 18, 2025
Great series of books ..so hard to put down
I've read this series from book one.... you find it hard not to sympathise with DS Logan Mcrae as his work and personal life seems to turn on the flip of a coin! He trying and does get crimes solved....only to either end up with professional standards or with injuries 🙄 fantastic books 📚 👏 definitely a 5⭐️ read
I've read this series from book one.... you find it hard not to sympathise with DS Logan Mcrae as his work and personal life seems to turn on the flip of a coin! He trying and does get crimes solved....only to either end up with professional standards or with injuries 🙄 fantastic books 📚 👏 definitely a 5⭐️ read
June 10, 2018
Giving this 5 stars because Flesh House was one of the best in the series. The other two weren’t as strong,
January 15, 2017
Upon finding out there was a police procedural set in Aberdeen, a city I knew well, I knew I would have to be all over those books. I enjoy such books wherever they are set, but having them based in a city I know makes it all the more fun. Thus, I went in with high hopes.
Fortunately, I was not disappointed.
MacBride’s books are filled with a dark humour that is right up my street. Giving a realistic take on the police force, having them dealing with multiple crimes throughout the book, pulling me in right from the start. Everything about these books appealed to me. The multiple layers to the crime. The way he sets the scene. The realistic characters. The humour.
I could rant and rave all day, but it all comes down to one simple fact: these books should not be missed.
Fortunately, I was not disappointed.
MacBride’s books are filled with a dark humour that is right up my street. Giving a realistic take on the police force, having them dealing with multiple crimes throughout the book, pulling me in right from the start. Everything about these books appealed to me. The multiple layers to the crime. The way he sets the scene. The realistic characters. The humour.
I could rant and rave all day, but it all comes down to one simple fact: these books should not be missed.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews