The award-winning first Parlabane thriller mixes paranoia and politics for "a lean, nasty, fun little page-turner" about a powerful Scottish scion's murder ( The New York Times).

Investigative journalist Jack Parlabane has visited plenty of crime scenes, but whoever carved up Dr. Jeremy Ponsonby wanted to send a particularly revolting message. As jet-lagged, hungover, and nauseated as he may be, Parlabane knows this was no break-in gone wrong. Dr. Sarah Slaughter, anaesthetist and ex-wife of the victim, is beginning to believe it, too. Ponsonby had plenty of secrets, but the motivations for her ex-husband's murder cut even deeper than they can imagine.

Are Parlabane and Slaughter a match for the skullduggery? It depends on how much more of the black morals and full-color bloodshed of the Edinburgh medical society they can stomach in this "thrillingly unpleasant" winner of the First Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel of the Year ( Esquire).