DS Logan McRae is back on the job after a rather unpleasant period of rest. He’s getting over an old relationship (with the local pathologist), some old wounds (round the stomach area) and trying his best to get back into the swing of police work in Aberdeen. Except he winds up in charge of an investigation when the dead and mutilated body of a child turns up and no one else seems to be around to pick up the case.

Welcome back, indeed.

The debut from Scots writer, Stuart MacBride, COLD GRANITE, brings yet another player into the Tartan Noir arena, but thank God this one isn’t traipsing around Edinburgh or Glasgow. Really, folks, Scotland is a bigger country than you know! It’s a confident debut, too, breezing in easily with a slick plot and prose that whips past like lightning, yet remains easy on the eye and brain.

MacBride’s has an uncanny ability to keep a large, complex plot in constant motion. The book may purport to have a central protagonist in Logan McRae, but ultimately this is as much of an ensemble piece as anything. The cast of police, journalists and locals are intriguing out enough that, should MacBride wish, he could concentrate on any one of them for an entire novel.

The multi-layered plot – that twists and turns so often you can expect several revelations on just one page – takes McRae and WPC Watson – who’s been assigned to assist the DS as he gets back on his policeman’s feet – on a somewhat circuitous tour of Aberdeen’s local scum. From the dysfunctional, council flat families to the local betting boys who don’t let anyone leave without some kind of debt, MacBride gives us a whistle stop tour of a city that’s far more reflective of modern Scotland than the capital could ever hope to be.

In the hands of a less personable writer, the snaking plot could quickly become frustrating. MacBride runs the risk of having his readers scream in frustration with the number of false leads, misinformation and complications that beset McRae and Watson. But MacBride’s prose is confident enough to carry you forward and, by the end of the book, he pays off each twist with confidence before rushing you headlong into the helter-skelter of the final confrontation with the child killer who has avoided the local coppers for so long.

Kudos to MacBride, too, for outsmarting this reader. Midway through I figured I realised who the killer was and felt almost disappointed to have reached this revelation so early. But, inkeeping with the labarynthe nature of Cold Granite, I had been fooled completely, led on by my enthusiasm to reach what became a clearly false conclusion.

But while the main plot steamrollers ahead, MacBride doesn’t forget his characters. Despite McRae being our hero, MacBride manages to grant an ensemble feel to the cast of local bobbies. Everyone, from the Chief through to the beat officers, feels rounded and real, like a collection of old friends. McRae’s attraction to WPC Watson is toe curlingly funny and real with just the right amount of humiliation. His antagonistic but still respectful relationship to his boss is reassuringly drawn with just the right amount of conflict, manipulating the reader just enough that the evolution of the relationship feels utterly natural. The rest of the cops, even those glanced in brief flashes and moments, tend to feel like real people thanks in part to MacBride’s natural dialogue. Despite the heavy emphasis on McRae as the hero, the ensemble appeal works well and you get the feeling that MacBride could easily spin these characters off into their own stories with a remarkable ease.

The rest of the cast don’t fare too badly, either. Roadkill, a local council worker with mental health problems is drawn with wonderful sympathy and is the character whose fate I felt most strongly for. Unfortunately, the local Anderdonian scumbags come off a little flat, almost like MacBride put their character development to one side. But when one considers that the main point of view here is the copper’s point of view, one understands that maybe these hard men appear this way merely because of the situations in which we find them. All the same, I’d love to see MacBride delve deeper into the Abderdonian underworld, present us with more fully rounded and complex bad guys.

If Cold Granite suffers from any problems, those problems are bound inherently with the genre of the police procedural. There is, on the surface, nothing new to the evils faced by McRae and co, which means despite the snaking plot, certain readers may find themselves slinging charges of “been there, done that” around. But, then, most stories have been done before and MacBride takes the standard police procedural and breathes life into it. He gives his characters emotions and interest that carry you along and the sense of outrage at the criminal acts that spur the police into action is such that you find yourself as desperate as anyone else to see justice done.

And there’s some social commentary between all the fun as well. With public vigilantism on the rise as various people are taken in for questioning, MacBride isn’t such a dumb writer as to ignore the problems with the seemingly simple justice such an abhorrent crime demands on a base level. As Logan notes when he sees a mob fuelled by the kind of righteous fury over the child killings and armed with banners declaring, DEATH TO THE PEDIPHILE SCUM “Last time there had been this kind of fervour three paediatricians had their surgery windows smashed. Now it looked like they were after the foot fetishists.” There is justice to be served and none of the coppers doubt it. But it cannot be served through blind rage which serves only to momentarily heal the wounds and, as the plot comes to reveal, perhaps threatens to deepen the tragedy of such a situation.

Cold Granite is a smart thriller with an Aberdonian accent that – unlike the real thing – is understandable on a more global scale. MacBride knows his city and he knows his country, but the real drama here is universally human and the tragedy that deepens as the book progresses is one that is instantly relatable. But that tragedy is balanced with a subtle sense of humour and characters you come to care for. MacBride is a writer to watch, and this series – not only with its intriguing central character but its well rounded ensemble support – is one which has this reviewer eagerly anticipating the next volume.