Review: ABSOLUTION, Caro Ramsay

• 
  This edition an e-book on Kindle at Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B091H15B8W
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Joffe Books crime thriller, mystery and suspense (April 14, 2021)
  First published 2008
  
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 390 pages
• #1 in Anderson and Costello series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Meet your next favourite Scottish detectives: DI Colin Anderson and DS Winifred ‘Freddie’ Costello.

A serial killer is stalking Glasgow.

A woman is found dead in her own home. No sign of forced entry. But she is posed as though on the cross. Ripped open and bled to death. With a blistering of chloroform round her mouth and nose.

She’s not the first victim found like this.

Detectives Anderson and Costello are on the case. But their boss, DCI Alan McAlpine, is unravelling before their eyes.

The past holds horrific memories for McAlpine. He last worked this beat some twenty years earlier, when he was assigned to guard a woman, faceless after a sadistic acid attack. He couldn’t protect her.

The past is resurfacing.
Three women are dead.

Can they stop a serial killer who’s terrifying the gritty streets of Glasgow?

A Scottish police procedural that will keep your pulse racing from electrifying opening to heart-stopping finish.  

My Take

This is actually not a new series, the first originally published in 2007, just recently published as an e-book, I think. I will certainly be checking up for more.

A serial killer is acting as a vigilante, targetting women who have betrayed others. So far three have been brutally killed, and there is no sign  that "he" is stopping.

It is a complex plot, with clues that seem to lead nowhere. In many ways this is a very solid police procedural. The ending will leave you wondering where the series is heading.

DETECTIVES ANDERSON AND COSTELLO MYSTERIES
Book 1: ABSOLUTION
Book 2: SINGING TO THE DEAD
Book 3: DARK WATER
Book 4: THE BLOOD OF CROWS
Book 5: THE NIGHT HUNTER
Book 6: THE TEARS OF ANGELS
Book 7: RAT RUN
Book 8: STANDING STILL
Book 9: THE SUFFERING OF STRANGERS
Book 10: THE SIDEMAN
Book 11: THE RED, RED SNOW

My rating: 4.5

About the author

Caro was born in Govan, on Glasgow's south side. A graduate of the British School of Osteopathy, she runs a large osteopath centre in West Scotland, treating animals and humans, and writes in her spare time.

Her first novel Absolution was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2008 and her second Singing to the Dead was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2010. The third in the series, Dark Water, was published on 4 August 2010, and the fourth book The Blood Of Crows was published on 30 August 2012. Critic Cathi Unsworth in The Guardian opined that Ramsay's series "excels in sense of place, realism, plotting and caustic humour", describing it as "Bleak, black and brilliant".

Ramsay was the subject of a 2007 BBC documentary film, and appeared on STV show The Hour in 2010.