Review: Flesh House

Flesh House by Stuart MacBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fourth Logan McRae novel, and Stuart MacBride is slowly working himself higher up my list of favourite authors.

Since picking up the first Logan McRae novel, Cold Granite, I knew I was onto something good with Stuart MacBride. I love crime thrillers, adore police procedurals, and he was offering me all that I wanted and then some. He offers great mystery. He keeps you guessing throughout. There are plot twists. There are great characters. The humour is dark. The story is grizzly. He has it all, and to make it all better I actually know the locations in the stories. The final point, knowing the locations, doesn’t really influence my love of the stories (I would love them even if I was oblivious to Aberdeen) but it does make it that little bit easier to enjoy.

With Flesh House, Stuart MacBride gave us another great story. Book three, Broken Skin, was my favourite of the first three books. It had every single tiny thing that I could ask for. It really did, in my opinion, have it all. I fangirled so hard, to the point where it was no longer funny. Coming after such a thing, I was worried Flesh House would not be as good. At the same time, however, the synopsis had me believing it would be even better. It was a tough place to be, but I was excited any way.

Compared to many crime books I have read, this one sits quite high up there. Compared to the first three Logan McRae books, it is not the best. It is at Stuart MacBride’s usual high standard, but it sits in the four star category rather than the five star category. A wonderful read, but not my favourite in the series. Wonderful, as I had hoped, but it was coming after a stronger read.

With Flesh House, I feel as though the story was a bit slower. This isn’t to say the story was slow throughout, but it seemed to take longer before the action really started. A lot more time was spent focusing upon the past aspects of the case, of what happened twenty years ago, and rehashing details pertaining to that aspect of the story rather than moving things forwards.

Of course, they did move forward in the end. When things started moving it was great – there were so many aspects to the story, and it was all a lot of fun – but I felt as though I waited longer than usual for the action to truly start. As so much happened, towards the end, I felt as though the story had made up for the slow start, but it still wasn’t quite there. I would have liked all the wonderful aspects of the story, and a little more speed at the start.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a brilliant story. I did have a lot of fun with it, as I do with all of the Logan McRae novels. I’ve already listed all of the things Stuart MacBride has to offer, and all is apparent in this novel. Hell, the humour continues to increase with every novel and I was once gain getting into trouble for laughing at the most inopportune of times. I simply had my hopes set a little bit higher after reading Broken Skin.

Overall, a wonderful read. It is a brilliant addition to the series. Unfortunately, despite hoping otherwise, it wasn’t a new favourite.

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