Showing results by narrator "James Bryce" in All Categories

In Edinburgh's old Parliament House, an armed robbery trial is about to take a macabre turn. While the lawyers tussle over the evidence, the judge suddenly collapses in mortal agony--the victim of an apparent heart attack.

With his boss recovering from a heart attack, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner is filling his shoes - and that means more time behind a desk. But he's about to be provided with more drama than he could ever want. One of the world's most ruthless terrorists is on his way to Edinburgh - and he can only have one thing on his mind: the forthcoming conference of world heads of government.

Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner's legendary cool is shaken when he's faced with the bodies of his wife's parents, who have been brutally murdered. At the death scene in New York state, Skinner's out of his jurisdiction - but he's not going to let that stop him shaping the investigation.

Duchlan Castle is a gloomy place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her locked bedroom. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body. Inspector Dundas is dispatched to investigate. The Gregor family and their servants are quick to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman, but Dundas uncovers a more complex truth.

Skinner's Thursday Legends amateur football team has more to worry about than aching backs and dodgy knees. Is someone targeting this disparate group of colleagues and friends in some bizarre scheme of retribution? Or is the murderer one of them?

The killing was an expert hit. Three shots through the head, as the lights dimmed at a celebrity concert in Glasgow. A most public crime, and Edinburgh Chief Constable Bob Skinner is right in the centre of the storm. The crisis finds Skinner, his private life shattered by the shocking end of his marriage, taking a step that he had sworn he never would. Tasked by Scotland's First Minister with the investigation, he finds himself quickly uncovering some very murky deeds...

Four Albanian gangsters have infiltrated Edinburgh. They are smart guys, ruthless operators and deep undercover. MI5 are on their case and, unknown to DCC Bob Skinner and his men, they have set up a drug-dealing sting to flush the gangsters out.

When two young female artists are murdered in what looks like ritualistic killings, the pressure is on to find a highly professional murderer. The arrival of the father of one of the victims, millionaire businessman Davor Boras, brings in the big guns of the Home Office, MI5, and the CIA. It isn't long before Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner gets called back to the front line in a case that is as deadly as it is mysterious.

As Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner takes an evening stroll with Louise Banks, an old flame and now a film star, it seems his biggest worry is that a new colleague is scheming to enlarge his territory at Skinner's expense. But when a frightening shot-gun attack sends them diving for cover, it seems danger has chosen to zero in on him once again.

DCC Bob Skinner has a failed marriage on his hands and a death on his conscience, but little time to deal with either as he faces the biggest challenge of his career within the secret corridors where dark power is wielded. Four crimes, four crises: can Skinner and his people solve them?

A small time crook stumbles upon a body hanging from a tree; a veteran from a Belgian marching band is killed in a hit and run incident and another dies of an apparent heart attack.

A plane explodes mid-flight and plunges to disaster from the Scottish skies, the British and American defence secretaries among the victims. Now Edinburgh’s Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner must lead the most high-profile investigation of his career. The means of destruction is apparent from the start, but the investigation quickly grows more puzzling. When Skinner himself is wrenched from the case, his colleagues struggle with the mass of clues while he fights for his life, trapped with the secret horrors of his past.

Every August thousands of tourists and performers flood into Edinburgh for its famous festival. But this year, on the very first day, an explosion rocks Princes Street, and a man is killed. A few hours later, a threatening letter is delivered to the Secretary of State – apparently from a freedom group – demanding political separation from England. Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner, head of CID, quickly assembles his team, with SAS backup.

It's August and the Edinburgh International Book Festival is in full swing. The world of books is focused on Charlotte Square Gardens, so it's a considerable embarrassment when a successful crime writer, and key member of the Scottish Parliament, is found dead in the author tent. But is it natural causes? DCC Bob Skinner, on the edge of a career-defining moment, doesn't need this in his life.

Fifteen years in the past, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Bob Skinner is called to investigate a most brutal death. A man lies at the deep end of an empty swimming pool, his neck broken and almost every other bone in his body shattered. Soon, an organised-crime connection looms, and bloody retribution spreads to a second city. Then violence erupts on a new front, as a vicious knifeman seems to be targeting Edinburgh's gay population.

The opening of an elite country club, marked by a prestigious golf tournament, turns to chaos when a man is found dead in the clubhouse jacuzzi – with his throat cut. When the murder is linked to a legendary witches’ curse, Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner thinks it’s fantasy. He’s more concerned with harsh reality than East Lothian’s past as a centre for witchcraft. But when another body is found, he must uncover the disturbing truth beneath a dark mythology…

When an Edinburgh car showroom is torched, leaving a charred body among the burnt-out luxury cars, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner wonders if a life of crime has finally caught up with one of the city's most elusive villains. But the corpse turns out not to be that of Jackie Charles, the owner of the showroom, but his wife Carole. Skinner now finds himself on the same side as his old enemy. However, Skinner's number one priority is a murder much closer to home.

Still reeling from the tragic death of their much-loved colleague, Skinner's men are about to discover that a disturbed serial killer is still at large and very close to home. DCC Bob Skinner and his men get a call informing them that the body of a young woman has been found on a golf course. The way she has been laid out is uncannily familiar; the body has been "composed", just like the bodies of three other young women in a previous case. Could it be the work of a copycat killer?

The heat is on for DCC Bob Skinner. His career hangs by a thread, as a recent illness has given his enemies a weapon to use against him. A body found in the detritus of a flood is identified as the hated brother whose existence he has kept hidden for years. And an incendiary device destroys a valuable painting in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. As Skinner and his team tackle these crises, his wife Sarah, recovering from the loss of her parents, finds comfort with an old college lover.

First the joyous birth of Skinner’s son… Then the grim reality of murder in ones of Edinburgh’s prosperous suburbs. A man has been found knifed in a luxury villa. The victim had run a chain of launderettes, saunas and pubs throughout the city, but for some time the police suspected these to be the front for a drug-distribution network.