DI Tony McClean is great antihero. He does not need to work, he has inherited great wealth and this gives him the power to question and indeed show 2 fingers to his superiors if they hinder his doggedness to solve a case. He is a typical good cop working on instinct, living close to the edge, taking risks and acting like an arse😀although he would use the word maverick. An explosive start sees a body dropped from a great height entangled in a tree before smashing to the ground. With few leads to rely on and a police hierarchy increasingly at odds with McClean, the DI begins to smell the stench of a coverup. What is the relationship between a wealthy entrepreneur, a renowned gangster and an ex policeman. A solid read with strong characters, excellent plot, and explosive finish kept me enthralled and engrossed until the final page. ( )

There is always a whiff of the supernatural throughout this series that makes the stories take on the flavor of the unbelievable for some readers. If you are expected the final pages to be "by the book" you are going to be in for a bit of a disappointment. if you are willing to go with the flow then you are in for a a wild ride. This book as well as the last 6 in the series is a well-constructed...with very well-rounded characters and an unfolding plot which remains a mystery right to the end. You have corruption... you have murder and mayhem...and you have a big surprise at the end that will more than please fans of Tony McLean. ( )

One cold morning a dragon flies over Edinburgh and a man falls from the sky to his death. Of course things are not what they seem at first, the dead man is a former cop and current philanthropist, and dragons don't exist. Recently returned to work after traumatic events in his last case, Tony Maclean is keen to see that the crime is solved. However investigation leads down many paths, uncovering corruption in the force and bringing him closer to his nemesis, Mrs Saifre.

I was drawn to read this book as Oswald had been flagged up as a writer who was developing a niche for gritty police procedurals, in that respect I was not disappointed. Having not read the previous books in the series I was at a disadvantage with regards to characters and references to to previous events but that did not spoil the enjoyment of this book. At its heart this is a standard crime novel but the main protagonist is well realised and the plot is sensible, it doesn't have slightly unrealistic twists that sometimes accompany this genre. ( )

Thank you to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I love this series of books, so was thrilled to receive a copy, but then found I wasn't up to date and felt I needed to read the previous two episodes before exploring this one! Some other reviewers have said that this novel stands alone well - personally I would recommend starting at the beginning and reading all seven books.

Inspector Mclean has been on a three month suspension and on his first day back at work a man is dropped out of the sky and dies high up in a tree. A young boy is witness to this and believes the man has been dropped by a dragon. That surely can't be possible?

The investigation that follows sees Mclean pulling together a new team of both experienced and inexperienced officers. They dig deep and have to approach the investigation in different ways - they even look into the background of the boy's long dead father as a possible link. Along the way they uncover drug connections, police corruption and a link to Mrs Saifre.

This book is full of old relationships and links to the previous novels. There are familiar characters - Acting DI Richie, Grumpy Bob, Duguid to name a few, plus personal friends Emma and Phil and Rachael are all back in the storyline. Sadly DS Macbride has moved on - hopefully he will be back. But there are also new characters - acting DC Harrison seemed to do particularly well I thought and it seemed as though Mclean took her under his wing.

For readers of the series, this book has a particularly brilliant ending - he crashes the Alfa again, but it's not that! It made me want to read the next one straight away, but it hasn't been written yet, so I guess I will have to wait. ( )

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