The book was readable and has the familiarity of characters that I've 'known' and seen developed for 20 or so years. 'Big' Bob is on some sort of sabbatical as he hates the idea of the integrated Police Scotland and has decamped to Spain where he helps out an old friend which in turn helps him decide where his future direction will lie.
It was a good enough book, enjoyable for me due to the familiarity, but not one of his best. Normally his books will focus on some key individuals but many of the others are woven through the story in the background. I felt it was rather pedestrian as it had a fairly limited cast of characters and was mainly set in Spain which is where the author spends much of his time. I finished this today on my phone while abortively sitting waiting in an X-Ray Dept for scans which I had to reschedule due to the glacial pace of the dept. as I had other meetings to attend. This kind of thing is where ebooks come into their own.
If you haven't read any QJ and enjoy the Ian Rankin/James Oswald crime-novel-set-in-Edinburgh genre then these are definitely worth a look. Its not as dark and curmugeonly as Rebus and the only spooks come from MI5 but it is a pretty contemporary read as everyone has aged and kept pace with time. Incidentally Quintin is very caught up with the male characters in his books being constantly described as 'Big'...Big Bob, Big Mario, Big McIllhenney...etc. I met him at a book signing last year and asked him why? but he reckoned it was just the Scottish thing about prefacing men's names with either 'Big' or 'Wee'. That aside the female characters feature strongly and he's very equality and diversity minded as they get a fair share of promotions and positioning.
