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    Broken Skin
    Broken Skin
    Broken Skin
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Broken Skin

    Written by Stuart MacBride

    Narrated by John Sessions

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The third DS Logan McRae thriller in the No.1 bestselling crime series from Stuart MacBride.

    A crime of passion … or cold-hearted murder?

    ‘MacBride is a damned fine writer’ Peter James

    The Granite City’s seedy side is about to be exposed…

    A serial rapist is leaving a string of tortured women behind him, but while DS Logan McRae’s girlfriend, PC Jackie ‘Ball Breaker’ Watson, is out acting as bait, he’s trying to identify a blood-drenched body dumped outside Accident and Emergency.

    Logan’s investigations suggest someone in the local bondage community has developed a taste for violent death, and he soon finds himself dragged into the twilight world of pornographers, sex-shops and S&M.

    Meanwhile, the prime suspect in the rape case turns out to be Aberdeen Football Club’s star striker. Logan thinks they’ve got it horribly wrong, but Jackie is convinced the footballer’s guilty and she’s hell-bent on a conviction at any cost…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 1, 2007
    ISBN9780007256617
    Author

    Stuart MacBride

    Stuart MacBride is the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae and Ash Henderson novels. His work has won several prizes and in 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Dundee University. Stuart lives in the north-east of Scotland with his wife Fiona, cats Grendel, Onion and Beetroot, and other assorted animals.

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    Reviews for Broken Skin

    4/5

    211 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is the 3rd installment of the Logan MacRae series. I liked book 1 and 2 the best and this one is my least favorite. The saving factor of this series is its characters as they are well developed and rather humorous at times. The subject matter of this book is sexual deviation and the book gets a little raunchy in areas. The blundering police force is a bit unbelievable but does manage to solve the crime in the end. Other then that, I do enjoy the series and hope that the next installment gets back on track.
    • 3/5
      This is an ok Police procedural set in Aberdeen. Logan Macrae and his team are investigating a series of Rapes that are also happening in Dundee. They believe a young up and coming Aberdeen football player is responsible.They are also investigating the death of a man who was found with internal wounds. He worked as a local Pornstar. Another case is the disappearance of an 8 year old boy who attacked and killed an old man. Macrae is under pressure he is dealing with lots of internal bureaucracy. He and his team manage to solve the cases. WPC Jackie Watson who is Logan's girlfriend really has it in for the Aberdeen playing suspected rapist. She even gives him a proper kicking. Good book with some good characters.
    • 4/5
      Definitely enjoy these books featuring DS Logan McRae, a decent cop with some good instincts -- but some bad ones too. I wonder if he will ever get promoted; meanwhile, in all the novels I have read thus far, he keeps getting close to getting fired... and yet all the cases magically come together in the end. Always a good read -- and fun to read the odd accents.
    • 4/5
      I love Logan McRae and Stuart McBride. I will keep going with the other books in the series. The characters are realistic; overweight, scarred and they make mistakes. Enjoyable books.
    • 4/5
      Broken Skin is Stuart MacBride’s third Logan Macrae novel. It's a very cold and bleak February in Aberdeen and it's raining again. There's a lot going on too. There's a vicious rapist on the loose, slicing up his victim's faces with a knife and PC Jackie Watson is taking that particular investigation personally. Macrae's team also finds the blood-drenched, horribly injured body of a man dumped outside a local hospital. The dead man is only identified when PC Rickards recognizes a distinctive tattoo from some explicit sex films.

      In Broken Skin, Macrae working for both DI Steel and DI Insch at the same time. It’s not a plot idea that seems to work terribly well. Rather than concentrating on a single investigation, Macrae is pushed back and forth, grumbling all the while and becoming impatient himself. Macrae is a wonderful character, and he is surrounded by an interesting and diverse cast. I like that there was a lot of background introduced during Cold Granite (the first book in the series), so we know the character didn't start out without numerous issues. This series deals with some dark content, primarily rape and murder so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy series.

      I think Broken Skin was entertaining enough but after MacBride's wonderful debut novel, Cold Granite, this one is a bit of a disappointment. I only hope this was a glitch and subsequent novels will be of the standard of MacBride’s first.
    • 4/5
      A police procedual set in Aberdeen, Scotland. The third in the series and DS Logan McRae had to deal with a serial rapist, they know who, but can't prove it, a murderous 8 year old, and the death of a porn actor. They all come together nicely and the characters, although different, make this an interesting read. Fully recommend this one.
    • 4/5
      Broken Skin is an entertaining read largely because all the lead characters are flawed in one way or another making them real. The book is overlong stretching its plots over three live cases - none of which would hold a book on its own - but the sparkling and witty dialogue and likeable characters ensure the reader is never bored.
    • 4/5
      A brutally savaged body is dumped at the A&E and the investigation gives DS Logan McRae an insight into Aberdeen's BDSM community while he's also attempting to juggle two abusive bosses and somehow curb girlfriend Jackie's bloodlust for a celebrity footballer cum suspected rapist. Although McRae is such a realistic character that it feels like you're getting an actual insight into the workings of the police, in this installment, Detective Inspectors Steel and Insch have been made somewhat into caricatures and it makes McRae look a little worse too, even if it is exaggerated for the sake of humor. This installment is actually quite a bit funnier than the previous ones - presumably comic relief from the crimes that are infinitely more gruesome than before. There are quite a few storylines and, at first, it makes the story seem scattered, but all is nicely, but not too neatly, tied together at the end. I'll jump on the next installment to see how the Jackie-issue is resolved (don't let me down, McRae!).
    • 4/5
      The continuing career of Logan McRae. This time there's a serie sof brutal rapes, a dumped body next to AnE and a young brat who' sjust stabbed someone in the highstreet. McRae gets off to a bad start by failing to catch him as the perpetrator knifes another constable. Fortunately for McRae this time he doesn't have a body on his conciousness. And so it continue pretty much as the previous two books. A respectable depiction of life in a grim scottish town. Lots of banter between the officers as the dumped body turns out to be involved in the BDSM porn scene. However most attention is focused on the serial rapist. Logan's girlfriend WPC Jackie Watson is invovled in the bait operation, and nails a local football star. The coppers local lawyer slippery sid gets him off of course but neither Jackie nor the DI will give up easioly. this gives Logan some qualms as some of the practises verge on the un-ethical. However he has his own problems with the deputry Prosecutor Fiscal, Rachel, giving him no un-certain signs, despite his involvement with Jackie.It al works out in the end as you might expect, but the paths there are reasonably wwell laid. Loga's habit of jumping to wrong conclusions, persuading his DIs to investigate them rapidly get annoying. I'm sure much more evidence could be gathered before the police jump in heavy handed. Enjoyably readable though. the sex scenes and event he BDSM never become that explicit, and the characters are treated as human throughout, depsite the bantering. The two DIs continue to be over exagerated, but I'm sure Logan will be elevated to their ranks soon enough to dispense with them.
    • 5/5
      Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is back, faced with a selection of crimes that are even grimmer than those uncovered in the previous novels in this excellent series, "Cold Granite" and "Dying Light". This time the lead case is a series of rapes in which the level of violence is executing. mcRae and his colleagues arrest a suspect apparently red-handed, but when he turns out to be the leading star of the local football club the press and public turn against the police with cries of Witch Hunt. Meanwhile, a body dumped at the hospital turns out to have been the victim of a bondage exploit that got out of hand. McRae has to delve down into the secretive BDSM community, with the help of one of his colleagues who turns out to be an insider within that community.While all this is going on the police are also hunting for an eight year old boy, wanted for the murder of a pensioner and for stabbing a policewoman. Throughout it all McArae has to walk a fine line between his warring Detective Inspectors, Insch, the grossly-overweight amateur dramatist, and Steel, the foul-mouthed lesbian.Utterly engrossing, yet also relentlessly funny.
    • 5/5
      DS Logan McRae is faced with trying to identify a man whose naked, bloody body was dumped outside the hospital emergency door. When a fellow officer identifies the victim, it leads McRae into the world of bondage sex and pornography. McRae’s girlfriend, PC Jackie Watson, has caught a violent rapist. Unfortunately, he turns out to be a superstar footballer with an alibi.*** In a strange way, this reminded me of McBain’s 87th Precinct books but with much less likable characters. McRae tends to jump to the wrong conclusions just come out fine in the end. Jackie is focused on justice, even at the cost of bending the law. The two commanders, Steele and Insch, are believable bosses from hell. Somehow, it all came together into a book that held my interest straight though and was a really good read.
    • 4/5
      This was number three in Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae series. I must say that this installment was even better than the last. MacBride is getting more and more bold in his character development, and his descriptions of the crimes are more and more vivid. I love it and hope he keeps writing. Very similar to Mark Billingham's DI Thorne series, which is one of my favorites.
    • 5/5
      Protagonist: Aberdeen Detective Sergeant Logan MacRaeSetting: present-day Aberdeen, ScotlandSeries: #3First Line: Up ahead the woman stops.The Aberdeen police, on the trail of a serial rapist, catch sports hero Rob Macintyre stalking Woman Police Constable Jackie Watson, MacRae's live-in lover. Macintyre's arrest ignites public sentiment against the police, which effectively stops the investigation. Meanwhile a second case drags MacRae into the local BDSM scene, where he gets an unexpected education from his red-faced assistant constable, and then he has to track down an eight-year-old killer. The one thing the three cases have in common is that nothing is what it seems. MacRae bounces back and forth among them, yanked between two cranky, childlike detective inspectors demanding overtime and loyalty.MacBride has become one of my favorite authors. I love the plot twists, the grimness, and the flashes of wit and humor that break up the two. I can have chills on one page, turn it, and then be laughing uncontrollably on the next. The characterization is superb--to the point that I don't understand how on earth MacRae can face going in to work everyday when he knows he's got to face Insch and Steel (the two detective inspectors). MacBride's fourth MacRae book is being published in paperback in August. I have it on pre-order.
    • 5/5
      RETITLED "BLOODSHOT" FOR US RELEASE.I have been waiting impatiently for the US release of the third entry in this fabulously gritty series, and OMG, it's true: Mr MacBride just keeps getting better and better. Wicked black humor. Super strong characterization. A gripping plot with an ending that sneaks up and punches you right in the gut. And, yee hah, what a voice! Why the American publishers squeamishly elected to change the title to "Bloodshot" is beyond me. I can't imagine Mr MacBride's established fans here 'across the pond' being put off by the UK title, "Broken Skin." As for new readers: if the introduction thanking unnamed sources for "some pretty specialist information about the BDSM scene" doesn't scare them off, then neither should the original title. No, I won't be passing this (or anything equally noir) along to my octogenarian mama. I will, however, be recommending it like mad to just about everybody else I know.