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2000s: James Oswald introduces to a side of Edinburgh you will not have seen before. There are some dark places underneath the city…
Prayer for the Dead (Inspector McLean 5)
What you need to know before your trail
Edinburgh is a city built on secrets that few people are ever aware of. For underground there is a mysterious network of caves and passage ways, spooky and dark, where no one ever goes. But when a body is found there, having undergone a ritual of purification
In a sealed chamber, deep in the heart of Gilmerton Cove, a missing journalist is found and Inspector Tony McLean is shocked as he knows the dead man, and is baffled that there are no forensics at the scene. The case seems a strange one and Tony feels there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. However, this is only the start..
Travel Guide
Edinburgh really is built on a series of underground caves and tunnels and Gilmerton Cove is the place you have to go to visit them and see them for yourself.
It’s a series of dark sandstone chambers and passages deep underground which used to be an ex mining village many years ago. Gilmerton is now a suburb of Edinburgh and the signs of its past are few and far between…until you go deep underground that is.
What a place for a crime to solve then! The sense of foreboding and hidden places underground is spooky and eerie. Who would hear you scream here? Who would know that this place even exists? And what a place to leave a dead body in such a ritualistic way!
The opening scenes are chilling – you can smell and feel the damp underground on each and every page –
“The bag over his head means he can’t see the indentations in the rock face, the last marks made by those ancient masons so long ago”
“This is the dark place, the warm and the wet. We are here unborn waiting”
The voice of the killer narrates the sense of threat and death. He shows you this place – the history of it, the city up above and the men who built it he says, knew the secrets of the earth.
Almost total darkness so no one can see, what you do discover is by feel and touch – much like how McLean feels as the investigation takes on a sinister turn. This shadowy figure tucked away underground – in his own dark world.
The supernatural angle to the story, the unknown, the darkness going on beneath your very feet creates a mysterious and unsettling world.
Inspector McLean is the man to solve this case and he is in a race to do so as more bodies turn up. This is the ultimate battle of wills between a police officer and something very dark indeed.
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer:
I can’t believe I lived in Edinburgh and had never been to these caves. Oh but the stories and myths around them! Hats off to James Oswald for taking such an iconic yet relatively unknown piece of Edinburgh history and making it his own. The supernatural elements of this book are woven so tightly and cleverly into this storyline that you start to believe anything this man writes. I’d been on ghost walks of the gothic Edinburgh but this takes that to a whole new level
I’d read the books from the first one and although not necessary, it does add to the characters and their stories in this book. Inspector McLean is the kind of guy you would want to meet – he’s funny, real and very likeable as he struggles against his duty, his feelings and his daily battles with his fellow police officers.
Makes you wonder what is really going on in the city beneath your feet…
I can’t believe I lived in Edinburgh and had never been to these caves. Oh but the stories and myths around them! Hats off to James Oswald for taking such an iconic yet relatively unknown piece of Edinburgh history and making it his own. The supernatural elements of this book are woven so tightly and cleverly into this storyline that you start to believe anything this man writes. I’d been on ghost walks of the gothic Edinburgh but this takes that to a whole new level
I’d read the books from the first one and although not necessary, it does add to the characters and their stories in this book. Inspector McLean is the kind of guy you would want to meet – he’s funny, real and very likeable as he struggles against his duty, his feelings and his daily battles with his fellow police officers.
Makes you wonder what is really going on in the city beneath your feet…
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Twitter: @SirBenfro
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