Edinburgh after dark. Called back from leave, DI Blair "Mac" Mackenzie steps straight into a city she knows too well: granite, rain, and a new kind of fear. A body is discovered-posed with unnerving care-and soon the pattern sharpens: a killer staging women as echoes of Renaissance paintings.
With DCI Robert McNally at her shoulder, Mac leads Major Crime through the grind of a true Edinburgh manhunt. Dr Helena (Lena) Markovic threads the case with forensic precision; Ailsa Kerr digs through phones, banking trails, and the darker corners of dating apps; DS Callum Scott holds the line when the night leans in. The staging is meticulous. The traces are almost nothing. The clock is merciless.
Through it all, one voice steadies her: Evelyn, the reverend who saw the woman behind the armour in the moors. Across late calls and thin hours, their bond becomes the ballast Mac needs to walk a case that asks more than it should.
Gritty, lyrical, and fiercely human, Before First Light is a taut police procedural about control, survival, and the choice to be seen. It stands alone but continues directly from The Hollow Moors, deepening the arc of a detective who hunts in the dark-and learns she doesn't have to do it alone.
