Showing results by narrator "Neil Macgillivray" in All Categories

The Orkney archipelago is home to a remarkable array of prehistoric sites, most notably the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, the passage grave of Maeshowe and the village of Skara Brae - evidence of a dynamic Late Neolithic society with connections binding Orkney to Ireland, to southern Britain and to the western margins of Continental Europe. Despite 150 years of archaeological investigation, however, there is much that we do not know about the societies that created these sites. What historical background did they emerge from?

Left to her own devices, Detective Sergeant Charlie West struggles with the responsibility of a full-blown murder investigation when a man is pushed off a cliff. Not ready to have her apron strings severed so soon, West finds Munro who reluctantly agrees to shed light on the Ayrshire detectives' most challenging case yet. Once the police have discovered the identity of the dead man, and established his demise was the result of foul play, the race is on to hunt down the murderer.

When a sheep farmer boards a stricken fishing vessel stranded on the shore, he is in for the shock of his life. Within lies the body of a man who is inside out. The police find a filleting knife in the hold, covered in the victim’s blood. DI Charlie West arrives on the scene and given the obvious disembowelment immediately determines that a murder has taken place.

An employee of an investment bank is found dead in his car by a freshwater loch in Ayrshire, Scotland, but there are few signs of foul play. Newly promoted and in charge of the investigation, DI Charlie West wants to probe further. And when the victim’s links to a minor crime involving an assault on an associate come to light, a suspicious motive begins to emerge. 

A woman is found bludgeoned to death in a swimming pool. A pensioner who disappeared many moons ago turns up out of the blue. A cockeyed boxer has more success outside the ring than in it. What connects these events may be the clue DI Charlie West is looking for to solve the latest murder on her patch. But just when West has a likely suspect in custody, Munro returns to the scene - his enforced repose having done little to dent his appetite for the finer and richer things in life - with an oblique angle on the case. 

Rancour is the eighth Scottish murder mystery to feature Detectives James Munro and Charlie West. The conditions were terrible for a hike up Goat Fell, so why did a group of schoolgirls attempt it? One of the girls presses on when the others turn back; inappropriately dressed and unprepared, she meets her death. After mountain rescue retrieves the body, various questions start to be raised. Inconsistencies in her companions’ accounts of events are exposed, and it turns out the victim may have been drugged.

DI Charlie West is investigating a series of robberies when three fingers are found in a refuse site. The investigation leads the team to a local restaurant, the university campus and the municipal dump. But when a man walks into a jeweller’s shop and calmly bashes in the head of the owner, they have a murder case on their hands. Despite the discovery of a man in some discomfort due to missing the fingers on his hand, the investigation draws blanks.