More Tartan Noir: Frank Muir "Eye for an Eye" (2007)

When I spot a bit of Tartan Noir in Surry Hills Library I tend to give it a go. And so I borrowed this novel by Frank Muir, not the one some will recall from endless repeats of the classic British series “My Word” on Radio National. That Frank Muir died ten years ago, I see.

This Frank Muir now lives in the USA but is Glasgow born and bred.

One psychopath. One killer. The Stabber.

Six victims. Six wife-abusers. Each stabbed to death through their left eye.

The cobbled lanes and back streets of St Andrews provide the setting for these brutal killings. But six unsolved murders and mounting censure from the media force Detective Inspector Andy Gilchrist off the case. Driven by his fear of failure, desperate to redeem his career and reputation, Gilchrist vows to catch The Stabber alone…

Prince William appears in the plot margins.

It’s not a bad debut novel either.

If [Edinburgh Book] Festival visitors were asked where they expect Scottish crime novels to be set, a fair few would probably think of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh first, or Denise Mina’s Glasgow. Others might pick Stuart McBride’s Aberdeen. Certain areas of these places suit the dark grimness necessary for murder most foul. But would anyone come up with St Andrews? Very few, probably. Rarely has such a picturesque spot been used to describe anything more dramatic than a hole in one. But that’s what’s interesting about debut novelist Frank Muir’s Eye For an Eye, a book which seeks to play with the reader’s expectations of what a crime novel is supposed to be.

Rather than being your usual senseless madman let loose in a crazy city, Muir’s murderer is in rather pleasant surroundings and on a moral crusade: the Stabber only goes after wife abusers. And is only interested in one part of the body… — The List