Review: Blind Eye

Blind Eye by Stuart MacBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blind Eye, the fifth Logan McRae novel, simply highlights why Stuart MacBride is one of my favourite authors.

Whilst Blind Eye is not my favourite of the Logan McRae novels – that title is currently held by Broken Skin – it is certainly a great read. Having recently read MacBride’s Ash Henderson novels and finding them less enjoyable than his McRae novels (they’re still fun, but they’re not the same), it was great to go back to what I know and truly love.

After many novels depicting the terrible Aberdonian winters, we’re finally being given one set in summer. I argued in the prior books that Aberdeen winters are not as dreary as MacBride makes them seem… Well, having now read his summer book whilst dealing with winter, I realised he captured Aberdeen perfectly. It is cold as hell. It is wet and windy all the time. However, it really isn’t the terrible place MacBride would have you believing. If nothing else, it’s a much better city than where I grew up. The whole crime aspect – he could have shoved it into any city, he simply picked the windy one he knew so well. That’s a tangent, though – just know we finally have that summer book he kept promising!

Straight away we’re thrown into this wonderful story, with the first chapter throwing us straight into the action. Despite how we’re thrown in within a couple of pages, I felt as though it did take a while for things to really start coming together. As always, MacBride has multiple storylines existing at the same time. We never deal with just one crime. There are always many things occurring, usually with these things being connected in some way or the other.

For me, though, what I really loved about this one was the way in which the characters developed. They’re just as amusing as always – even more so in certain cases (hell, this one has left me wishing for a Steel spinoff series; the woman is wonderful, and I could write for hours about how great she is) – but there is more than just the usual. In particular, we get to see Logan as more human. We get to see how everything has been building up for him; we get to see the way things impact upon his life.

Basically, we get to see the breakdown.

It was so different to the prior books, allowing us to see Logan in a new light. Oddly enough, I loved this Logan even more. Perhaps that just me, though, being weird and loving it when characters are forced into the darkest corners of their mind. The way in which he changes throughout the book, the way in which things playout – whilst not my favourite in the series, I loved the way this one had a somewhat different feel to it.

Overall, it was another brilliant read. I really need to get my hands on book six. I have the rest of the series sitting on my bookshelf, but because I’m a rather silly human being I’m missing number six. As soon as I get my hands on it, though, I’ll be sure to see what else is in store for one of my favourite police officers.

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