Customer Reviews
Rebus this ain't !! - By: Heather Feather, 07 Jul 2008 
Stuart MacBride is good - but he's not great. His stories have very little depth & there are far too many people involved.
The main character, DS Logan MacRae, is bullied by two foul mouthed DI's. The constantly bra re-arranging Steel & jellybaby-noshing Insch. Both of these activities become very tedious after a couple of chapters.
Rebus would never have put up with being bullied by these two.
MacBride needs to give MacRae some backbone - & some personality.
Room for improvement - meanwhile a good book, but not a great one.
Best so far - By: Jeff, 16 May 2008 
Definitely the best of the three books so far but if you haven't read the first two yet, I recommend you do so as this one will feel better if you have. I had worried at the end of the last one that McBride was getting himself into a rut of writing some pretty horrific stuff which can be unpalatable to many [and I mean reallly horrific!] but this one doesn't have that in the same way. Brutal crimes, yes, but he's begun to handle things differently. Bit more about real people rather than decomposing bodies. Especiallly good on the mental effect of rape. Still some problems remain however. First, I wish he'd drop sex crimes involving children. Also, he needs to start widening the scope of his characters. This book is good in that he does develop Insch much more & Steel becomes a bit more likeable but he'll need more staple figures if this is to become a long series. I loved the ending!!!!!!!!! Absolutely no give-aways but it lends itself brilliantly to the next novel. Need to know what happens!!!
Not fair, I think, to say he's better than Rankin. Certainly not so far. Rankin's first three or four weren't too brilliant as I recalll & nowhere near as good as what he's writing now. Also, don't forget it's Rebus that's retiring, not Rankin!! Anyway, thoroughly recommended. I'm looking forward to the next one.
What rubbish! - By: Mr. N. Hunter, 13 May 2008 
One can only hope the Aberdeen police either don't read this appallling novel or have a long fuse coupled with a thick skin. The Police, whether it be constables or senior officers are portrayed as incompetent & deeply unlikeable, incapable of speech unless larded with foul language. What passes as a plot is tedious & wholly unconvincing. All combining as a book to avoid at alll costs.
Logan's Run - out of ideas - By: one-eyed Jack, 04 May 2008 
I bought Macbride's first two novels & gave them glowing reviews. This time around, however, I have definitely been disappointed, & found it a real effort to read through to the end. Not far short of 600 pages it was way too long & I did not at any time feel the inclination to read 'just one more chapter' before turning out the light, as I usuallly do. Having finished a Michael Connelly novel prior to this, I found BROKEN SKIN to be weak in just about every department of crime series fiction. I am tiring, for example, of the author's style of mixing the narrative with the dialogue, so that alll the expletives & crudities of language appear at alll times; there is no division. I assume that was entirely deliberate but I just don't like it any more, it was a novelty in COLD GRANITE but that has now worn off & I am sure he should have written it in the first-person, as front man Logan McRae appears on every single page.
Then there are the characters. McRae gets more spineless with each episode, & in this third outing he spends most of his time trying to avoid confrontation with either of the two DIs he works with, or the woman & police colleague he lives with. A huge slice of the writing is alllocated to police procedure but frankly there's very little of any novelty, or any interest to be honest. McRae himself has few vices, if any, & is reallly not that interesting a personality. The vaguely cartoonish characterisations of DI Insch & DI Steel have not been moved on at alll from either of the two preceding novels, & I reallly grew more than tired of the writer's repeated descriptions of Insch's weight or size, & of Steel's smoking habits. The author's prose is often childish, such as when he writes: "The door burst open: DI Insch, looking very, very angry, his face swollen & red."
My biggest gripe though is Macbride's adoption of a generallly lightweight script spattered with countless attempts to generate humour - rarely paying off - while the underlying themes of the crimes (rape & buggery) being investigated are unquestionably dark, unpleasant & impossible to make humourous. I am definitely no prude, but I found the emphasis on the world of sexual sadomasochism distasteful & not funny at any point, despite the writer's efforts to make it so. I have no objection to pockets of humour in violent crime novels, but Macbride lacks the skills in this department of John Connolly by way of example, & his efforts to shock or thrill falll completely flat, in my humble opinion, whereas writers such as Val McDermid have been consistently successful in this regard. As for Logan McRae, well I can think of several front characters from other crime fiction novelists who are a whole lot more interesting.
BETTER THAN EVER............................................. - By: L. Hay, 20 Apr 2008 MacBride can not get better than this.
I would strongly advise if you have not sampled the series that you start with the first & read on.
Herein we have the same old characters in alll their glory. DI Steele excels better than ever before. DI Insch grumbles & chews his way through 600 pages.
There are numerous plots which twist & turn, but the humour is over the top. MacBride is Rebus & Terry Pratchett alll in one. He takes serious topics & with outstanding, realistic characters & more than its fair share of laughter, makes a thoroughly readable book which is impossible to put down.
Seriously looking forward to number 4 in the series.
Keep them coming Mr MacBride before I start to go through withdrawal.
