Shadow of the Castle

by Matthew Macleod

People go missing every day in the Scottish capital, where Luke Calvin treads the tightrope between the law and order of the police and the harsh realities on the streets. Existing in his own personal grey area and plying his trade as a private investigator in the shadows of Edinburgh, he operates at the behest of the "office": - nothing more than some semi-official voices on a phone and a steady paycheque for doing the work that they can't be seen to do. When a local magistrate requires his services to locate an errant son, Luke has to rely on every contact he has made on both sides of the law to find his man before time runs out. Family ties, the bonds of friendship, and the tether of a man to his employer are all tested to the limit and beyond as he does his best to stop another name from ending up as a footnote in the list of those that have been lost in the shadow of the castle.

202 pages, Paperback

Published November 18, 2016

Reviews

[Susan Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still trying to work out how I feel about this book. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it but there's just something that didn't feel right about it. I just can't work out what that was. Maybe it's just that that while the idea of high level corruption and interference is believable, I wasn't convinced by the idea of the drug dealers, the police officers, the bouncer/thug, the villains' secretary, the private investigator and the missing person he'd been hired to find, all sitting in the pub having a drink at the end of the book.

The story starts promisingly, the wee small hours of the morning, Luke sitting watching the rain from his window perched above the street, with the looming mass of the castle, looking down on the whole scene. A good start but somehow the rest of the scene setting didn't quite live up to the expectations this set.

It may not seem like it but I did enjoy reading this story, it was a break from the norm in crime fiction. I just can't stop feeling that I'm missing something, maybe that something is a follow-up that explores some of the characters in greater depth.

If a sequel was released I'd certainly be willing to give it a chance, but my final verdict on the book is an "sorry I just don't know, you will have to read it and judge for yourselves."