When The Devil Drives
Chris Brookmyre
Little, Brown
Published 2012
367 pages
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This is the second book in the Jasmine Sharp and Catherine McLeod Scottish contemporary crime series about two very different female detectives working in Glasgow – an inexperienced young private investigator, and a seasoned Detective Superintendent. You don’t need to have read the previous book, Where The Bodies Are Buried, although events from that one are referenced. This was a clever crime story which pairs a cold case mystery with a modern day mystery, against the background of the Scottish theatre scene.
Jasmine is hired by the older sister of a young actress who disappeared in 1981 after working on a production of MacBeth with a small theatre company, while Catherine is ordered to head the investigation into the sniper shooting of a prominent media personality at an play staged at a castle. Working separately, the detectives must expose secrets that powerful people would rather keep buried, but how do the cases connect and what really happened all those years ago?
It’s two years since I read the previous book so I remembered the characters but not what happened – which was OK as you get a decent recap. Unusually for a dual protagonist series, the two women do not work together – they don’t even meet, as they conduct parallel investigations, and while aware of each other, they maintain a wary distance from one another. My favourite part was Jasmine’s evolving relationship with shady father-figure Glen Fallan, especially given the devastating revelation of his role in her past. The mystery here was well done, with enough twists to keep me guessing, and a nice final flick of the tail at the end. There are currently two more in this series, so they’re going on the Wishlist!
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