Scottish caves have turned up again in crime fiction …

JD Kirk (a pen-name for writer Barry Hutchison) has written 21 novels featuring DCI Jack Logan, stationed in Inverness with a responsibility for the Northern Major Incident Team, which basically covers the whole Highland Region from Elgin right down to the island of Mull.

I had not read any of these books before encountering this one but will certainly seek out others as the author has a wicked command of simile, frequently of the laugh out loud variety, lending an extra frisson to an entirely absorbing plot-twisting narrative. I particularly liked the description of a shrill female interviewee whose ‘sentence sounded like air being squeezed from the neck of a balloon.’

For a change, a cave features front and centre, in this case the celebrated Smoo Cave, one of the major attractions on the now largely despised (by local residents) North Coast 500 tourist route in the far north-west. The featured victim, rock star Jonny Freestone, is found dead, presumed attacked rather than fallen, in one of the inner passages of Smoo. Here the book departs entirely from reality; as thousands of visitors can assert, the cave consists of only two spacious chambers, the second one enlivened with a spectacular waterfall and completely flooded, leading to a short walking passage beyond ending in an aven and a sump pool. For the purpose of dramatic impact, the author has expanded the system into several other easily entered tunnels which are, of course, entirely fictional. However, if the purist caving reader can thole this (a good old Scots word!) then readability is harmed not a jot.

There are frequent references to a previous book where the protagonist was involved in a fatal shoot-out also featuring a cave, where he lost colleagues, although this appears to have been a dénouement scene, rather than, as in this case, the central setting.

As in many detective stories, the culprit turns out to be the most unlikely suspect, but pleasure comes from simply reading an extremely well-written text, with an enjoyable running sub-plot of rivalry between two Detective Chief Inspectors jostling for ownership of the investigation.

Reviewed by Alan Jeffreys

Publisher: Canelo Crime
Published: 15 January 2026
Paperback: £7.99
Pages: 352
ISBN-10: 1835983022