A DEADLY FLAME by Doug Sinclair

4* A bit unbelievable in parts, unless Scottish coppers do things a bit differently to English ones, but an interesting read. 

It's not necessary for readers to have picked up books 1 and 2 before diving into this one,  as enough info's given so you get an idea of Malkie, Steph and his love interest. The latter doesn't feature too prominently but might be a bit more visible in the next tale as Malkie will likely need emotional support after what he discovers towards the end of this tale. 

You don't learn tons about the characters, just enough that you understand why they go about their jobs as they do, what made them who they are. A couple of things shocked me, particularly where Steph us concerned, as how can 'management' not pursue something that's been turned into.sm official complaint? 

But, the above aren't the main elements of the tale. The storyline in this is well done, part-sad when you realise the motivations, part-horrifying when it dawns on a character that what she'd kind of done with decent-ish intentions, has had terrible repercussions. There's a lot of fire-brigade talk, so much that it was a tad off-putting, but the storyline and the investigation and outcome were decent.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Storm Publishing for my reading pleasure


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