Caro Ramsay is the Glaswegian author of the critically acclaimed Anderson and Costello series, the first of which, Absolution, was shortlisted for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger for best debut of the year. The ninth book in the series, The Suffering of Strangers, was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize 2018.
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ALSO BY CARO RAMSAY
The Anderson and Costello series Absolution Singing to the Dead Dark Water The Blood of Crows The Night Hunter The Tears of Angels Rat Run Standing Still The Suffering of Strangers
This paperback edition first published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2020
by Black Thorn, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and in
Canada by Publishers Group Canada
First published in 2017 by Severn House Publishers Ltd,
Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
This digital edition first published in 2020 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Caro Ramsay, 2017
The right of Caro Ramsay to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 83885 101 9
eISBN 978 1 83885 102 6
CONTENTS
Character List:
Police Scotland Glasgow
DI Winifred Prudence Costello
DCI Colin Anderson
DS Viktor Mulholland
DC Gordon Wyngate
DC Donald McCaffrey
ACC Mitchum
DCI Diane Mathieson (Complaints and Internal Investigatons)
DI Bannon
Police Scotland Port MacDuff
Former SIO Lachlan McRae
DCI Alistair Patrick (married to Wilma)
DC Morna Taverner (married to Neil, mother of Finn)
Anderson Family
Brenda (married to Colin)
Claire and Peter (Colin’s children)
Moses (Colin’s grandson, child of Mary Jane – Anderson’s daughter)
Haggerty Family
(Oscar Duguid)
Abigail Haggerty nee Duguid nee Abernethy (deceased)
George Haggerty
Mary Jane (daughter of Colin Anderson and Sally Braithwaite, mother to baby Moses, deceased)
Malcolm (son of Abigail and George, deceased)
Valerie Abernethy (sister to Abigail)
Archie Walker (chief fiscal, Costello’s lover, married to Pippa Walker, godfather to Valerie)
Braithwaite Case
Sally Braithwaite nee Logan (mother of Mary Jane, deceased)
Andrew Braithwaite (Sally’s widower)
Kissel Case
Bernadette Kissel (mother of Daniel Kissel)
Daniel Kissel (son of Bernadette Kissel, deceased)
FAO A.C.C. D M Mitchum
Date As Postmark
M.I.T.
Partickhill Road,
Partickhill
Glasgow
Dear Sir,
Ref; Detective Inspector W. P. Costello
Please accept this letter in lieu of my resignation with immediate effect.
I’d like to say that this is a decision I have thought long and hard about. It isn’t. It was a decision made for me by those who believe that competent policing is having meetings and moving bits of paper around. Effective policing would have prevented the tragedy at Balcarres Avenue where a seven-year-old boy and his mother were stabbed to death. His name was Malcolm. Her name was Abigail.
He liked Glasgow Celtic and Star Wars. She was a qualified doctor. They are not statistics.