I stopped reading Stuart’s books a wee while ago as they are very formulaic with content, language, over the top humour. When this was advertised as a stand alone I thought I would give him another go. Although it does follow his formula I really enjoyed it. Maybe a break is what I needed.
DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter and DC Edward Reekie are transporting a prisoner to the unusual town of Glenfarach to live out his remaining days. Glenfarach is unusual in that all it’s inhabitants are prisoners who’ve served there sentences but can’t safely be released into the general public.
After dropping their prisoner off the two are on their way home when they get a call to head back as someone has been found dead. So begins the story, set amid the backdrop of one of the bleakest winters on record with great snow drifts and freezing temperatures, Reekie and Victoria or Bigtoria as she is called behind her back, have to unravel a murder amongst murders and that is just the start!
All in all a great read.

#TheDeadOfWinter #NetGalley

A cracker of a story as MacBride ventures into a combination of new (characters) and old (bloodthirsty) territory to give us an icy Scottish thriller. There is a whole heap of snow in the Cairngorms which plays its part in the landscape of the novel which is scary from page one..
Constable Edward Reekie is a kind-hearted young man with a nightmare DI boss whose nickname is Bigtoria. She never takes any notice of him or his helpful suggestions when they are faced with tracking down the culprit in a horrific murder. There are too many suspects as the snowed-in village where the murder takes place is a unique village for dangerous former prisoners who cannot be released into Society.
‘Dead of Winter’ is a pinnacle of MacBride’s pairing of his black humour and ‘Grand Guignol’- a modern fairy horror story.
Many thanks to the publishers for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for my unbiased comments on reviewing this novel by Stuart Macbride.

Maybe Stuart has done such an impressionable job on writing previously about Logan Macrae and Roberta Steel. Whatever it is this book feels like the same bond is here between DC Edward Reekie and DI Montgomery-Porter. Am I reading too much into this (pardon the pun). For me this is a distraction.

Still..... I enjoyed this one all the same. Good to have a new book from Stuart.

Just a simple transfer from Peterhead prison to a location in the Caringorms for convicts to see out their days. Interesting. Why not bring earth's scum to a beautiful Scottish National Park. Thanks :0) Of course due to the manual of authors, things don't go to plan and gruesome murders galore kick off. Throw in a good snow storm and voila... a good story! Told straight away of the main character being buried in a shallow grave - genius. How could you not read further! Why has this happened....read on of course! And so it all begins.

I have to admit, this took me a little while to get into the. The plot seemed out there and I wasn't sure how I felt about the characters. As the story progressed, I definitely started to enjoy it more and as the plot twisted and turned, it had me desperate to discover the conclusions!

I was surprised to find the dedication to Victoria Wood at the start of this latest from Stuart MacBride - there didn’t seem to be an obvious connection between their styles… But! On reflection, the sense of humour in play does have parallels, albeit in a much darker setting than Victoria Wood would typically deploy (discuss- some of her funniest material can be pretty bleak - the teenage cross channel swimmer for instance).

I digress.

Loved this, great set of characters, surprising opening setting up the mystery of why the DI would be burying her Constable… and lots of double crossing to follow.

Didn’t even miss Logan McRae, which I have in his last couple of books. Lots of dark and gory fun.

If you are a fan of Stuart MacBride, then much will feel familiar in his latest offering, the black humour, the characters, and the twisty, farce of a narrative. Having said that, this is still a great fun, thrilling and entertaining read, and the atmospheric location of a remote sinister village with a difference in the Cairngorms, Glenfarach, in the frozen depths of winter, experiencing non-stop heavy snow blizzards, is enough to give anyone the shivers. It begins with a horrifying scenario, and the story goes back in time to show how events led to this dreadful nightmare. The put upon DC Edward Reekie unexpectedly finds himself accompanying his new, tough, hard to please boss, DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter, known behind her back as 'Bigtoria'.

They leave Aberdeen and have the apparently straight forward task of transporting an ageing and dying prisoner, the notorious Mark Bishop, from HMP Grampian to live out his final days at Glenfarach. The weather is atrocious but they manage to make it to what looks like a picturesque place, but take a closer look and you might notice the huge number of CCTV cameras, that all the residents are tagged, and a strict curfew of 9pm is enforced. Yes, Glenfarach is home to ex-prisoners who have served their time, but whose release into the community is problematic, so you have a concentration of brutal, violent, hardened criminals, paedophiles, sexual offenders, etc.. After dropping off Bishop into the care of DS Erin Farrow, they are forced amidst worsening weather conditions to return after a resident is discovered murdered, having been tortured to death in his home, and this will not be the only death.

Glenfarach is cut off from the outside world, surrounded by menacing woods that harbours who knows what horrors, and all communications are down, everyone is a suspect, and matters begin to swiftly unravel with rising tensions in a terrifyingly dangerous case, of murders, arson, where a social worker has gone missing, where no-one, but no-one, can be trusted and lives are at stake. Once again the author delivers a wonderful crime read that his fans are likely to love, as will many new readers reading him for the first time. There are twist and turns and laughs galore in this dark, gory, stylish and gripping novel with its fabulous location. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I am very familiar with Stuart MacBride’s writing and used to the mixture of interesting characters, twisty plots and zany dialogue so I was really looking forward to his latest offering, This was a novel that the more I read the more I enjoyed it. The characters grew as the story developed and became a very enjoyable read.

What should have been a straight forward assignment for Detective Constable Edward Reekie turned out to be far more. His task was to collect a dying prisoner from HMP Grampian and deliver him to Glenfarach to live out his last remaining days in peace.

Glenfarach looked to be a very quiet peaceful place to live but looks can be very deceiving. Glenfarach is the final sanctuary for ex prisoners who have served their time but are still seen as unfit to be released into the general community. With blizzards approaching, Edward’s boss DI Montgomery-Porter, insists they head back to Aberdeen straight away but that changes when an ex-cop-turned-gangster is discovered tortured to death in his bungalow and someone needs to assume command.

A good read.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Random House UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for a honest review.

Stuart MacBride was once my favourite Scottish author and whilst I'll still read his books, I definitely feel as though his work has become stale of late.

The Dead of Winter features the same cookie cutter characters purely with different names. The usual overbearing, nasty female superior officer and the put upon, downtrodden subordinate are present here in the form of DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter and Detective Constable Edward Reekie. Both these characters could be any of the main characters from MacBrides previous books. If he's going to create new characters, I wish they'd be different from the others he's written as I didn't care about anyone in the book and felt it was a case of same old, same old.

Also, the "humour" present throughout the books is now well and truly overdone. Female characters harassing male characters who merely shout "eek!" and hide behind the nearest object available as well as the use of PG language ("fudging heck!") that doesn't fit in with the dark and menacing tones of the rest of the book,

That being said, there's still plenty to love in MacBride's fiction. The Dead of Winter is well written and flows well with great descriptions of both characters and locations. The plot is well thought out with a nice creative spin on the location. The violence and gore is - as always - brilliantly written and the plot had plenty of twists and turns to keep me guessing.

Overall - a good story, well written with plenty of twists. I just hope the next book has some originality in terms of characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Bantam Press for the ARC.

Another novel by master story teller Stuart Macbride. The books never disappoint , and continue with the same vein of wry black humour papering over the violence.

This novel is a stand alone one , leaving well behind the excellent Logan McRae series , which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Glenfarach is a small community of ex prisoners kept away from the general population . The place is run by a small group of social workers and local police.
D.I. Victoria Montgomery-Porter and D.C. Edward Reekie have been assigned to take Marky Bishop from prison to Glenfarach in the heart of Cairngorms National Park when the weather closes in and snow seals of the community with the two officers and Marky Bishop in it. The situation gets worse when a murder of one of the residents is discovered and no one from outside can get in. After that things start to go downhill , and fast .
A great read at tremendous pace makes this book as one of Stuart Macbride's best books.

The Dead of Winter is a typical Stuart MacBride novel, with a horrible DI and a long suffering sidekick involved in a chaotic adventure full of black humour, set in the north east of Scotland.

DC Edward Reekie and DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter (aka Bigtoria) pick up a dying prisoner who is on early release to spend the rest of his time in Glenfarach. The remote village is populated by former prisoners unable to live in normal society because of the nature of their crimes.

The pair find themselves snowed in, and dealing with the murder of a former gangster. That's when things start to go badly wrong for Reekie. The plot is complex and the cast of characters interesting to say the least. And the dramatic ending brings everything to a conclusion. A good read with plenty of action.

Snow has fallen, snow and snow in this deadly Winters Tale. The ensuing gritty violent story all starts when DI Victoria Elizabeth Montgomery – Porter AKA “Bigtoria“ (top tip, don’t call her that to her face if you want your bits to remain intact) and DC Edward Reekie collect ageing con Mark Bishop from HMP Grampian after serving a 25 year sentence. They’ve to take him to Glenfarach, a quaintly pretty Scottish village with CCTV cameras everywhere, literally everywhere.
This place is as creepy as it gets, think Village of the Damned as everyone here is out of prison on license, ankle monitors and all and they don’t get to leave. These are people who are not considered safe to return to society - scared much?? Unfortunately, neither Bigtoria and Teddy get to leave either as within its joyful environs a dead body is found. It’s a horrifying murder and the beginning of all hell breaking loose.

Right from the very beginning Stuart MacBride yanks you into the intriguing storyline and keeps you gripped in the icy hands of a tense, fast paced and unpredictable plot. It’s a very clever combination of excellent humour (I laugh out loud, titter and snort my way through the blood and gore!) and a darkly enigmatic puzzling mystery with an investigation that seems hindered at every turn.

Glenfarach is something else, the place gives off a very foreboding atmosphere like that of a Grimm fairytale village with cold and snow blanketing all and then there’s the surrounding encroaching forest where you could believe monsters lurk and yes, they probably do. There’s snow, fire, incompetence about 200 ex-cons, I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Oh yes, they’re also cut off by the snow I keep mentioning! Yikes. The plot keeps thickening like the white stuff.

There are some really good, creative and colourful scenes with multiple twists and turns all written in a smart ironic, sardonic tone with excellent dialogue to match. There’s multiple double , treble, quadruple crossings so you have no idea which colourful character to trust, not that I would dare to say that Bigtoria’s face!

Yes, it’s probably a lot bonkers but it’s also a highly entertaining, mad caper which I enjoy from start to finish.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Random House U.K., Transworld for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

I was a little bit disappointed when I saw the new MacBride did not have Logan MacRae I it.
I soon got over that.
This book is absolute chaos.
It's full of criminals all locked away from polite society in a village of its own.
It's gruesome, violent and as fun as anything this author has ever written. Then there's the weather....
The sickest farce I've e very come across.
And I enjoyed every second of it.

I absolutely love this author and his dark humour, amazing plots & characters and this book was no exception. Amazing as always.

The consistent trope in Stuart MacBride's books is the Harriden female police officer and her downtrodden and much-abused male subordinate. In The Dead of Winter those roles are taken by put-upon Detective Constable Edward Reekie and the truly awful Detective Inspector Victoria Montgomery-Porter, "Bigtoria" as she's not so affectionately nicknamed.......but not to her face.
The somewhat less than dynamic duo are tasked to meet a sickly and elderly old lag from HMP Grampian to take him to the gated village of Glenfarach,populated by ex cons who have done their time but for various reasons are deemed not suitable to live amongst the general population.
With the weather turning seriously bad Reekie and Bigtoria find themselves first snowed in at Glenfarach then investigating the grisly death of one of the towns "inmates", an ex-Cop who had turned to crime.
As the Snow comes down the bodies mount up and with a village people by mostly the worst kind of criminals there is no shortage of suspects.

As ever with a Stuart MacBride book there's plenty of lovingly described gore and mayhem and even more dark humour as the hapless Reekie endures not only the extreme weather but the withering put-downs of Montgomery-Parker. The book begins with a description of her actually burying Reelie in a shallow grave then works back.
Great fun, violent,bloody, a few shocks,plenty of surprises and most importantly a good story .

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this eARC.

This was a good and engaging book to read. It flows well, the writing is good and I loved the dark humour in the story. I didn't like Reekie initially although he did grow on me as the book progressed. He and his DI pick up a prisoner released from jail and take him to Glenfarach, a place where all is not as it seems. What could go wrong - everything. Throw in murders, a missing woman, hateful characters with their own agendas and you've got a very tense and atmospheric read. I could picture Glenfarach in my mind from the authors writing. There were lots of twists, many I didn't expect which made this a thrilling and entertaining read. Once or twice though I thought the book was a little overly long and I found myself skimming some pages. I would recommend this book, if you're either a fan of the author or love police procedurals, and I think you'd enjoy this read.

Brilliant, fantastic , gut bustingly funny, just the way i like my Stuart McBride book's, i just could not put this down, there's so many twists, if you're going to read one new book then this is it, McBride never let's us down, fudging great.

You have to ask yourself what did Reekie do in a previous life to garner such bad karma, if I knew the man I would stay as far as possible away from him as I could! The actual story is bloody good (in every sense if the word) absolutely recommend this book

A brilliant novel, it was so good I was up all night reading it, and I recommend it highly as a page turner for that reason. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.

How hard can it be?

DC Edward Reekie has to collect a dying prisoner from Grampian Prison, and bring him to spend the rest of his days in somewhere less uncomfortable.

On the face of it, Glenfarach looks innocuous. But it isn't. Far too many security cameras for a tiny village. And a 9pm curfew?

Glenfarach is the destination for time-served prisoners who can't be released back into general circulation.

So drop off the prisoner and get out before the bad weather closes in....except there's a body. And someone needs to take charge.

This is turning into a very bad day indeed...