“The Last Bloody Straw” is the fifth procedural starring Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan, a quintessential bluff thinker and finder. I gather the series is all set in the highlands of Scotland or other remote places; this one certainly is, the murder taking place on Canna, a bleak island of a few dozen people off the west coast. When a despised local drunken woman is brutally murdered, Logan finds himself virtually marooned on the island, with everyone a suspect, accompanied only by his classic foil, plodding DC Neish. Tightly plotted, evoking that part of the world well, and leavened throughout by savage hilarity, “The Last Bloody Straw” is a fine example of modern detective fiction.
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