Old Bastards
Stevie Duffy
INDIE SCOTTISH BOOKSELLER
Out of stock
Author: Claire Askew
£10.95 Original price was: £10.95.£5.00Current price is: £5.00.
All the Hidden Truths by Claire Askew explores the aftermath of a college shooting in Edinburgh as three women – the investigating DI, the victim’s mother and the shooter’s mother – seek meaning and answers that keep slipping away. A gripping, award-winning debut crime novel for readers who enjoy psychological depth and intense, character driven mysteries.
dispatched by Royal Mail Tracked 48
All the Hidden Truths begins the day before a shooting at an Edinburgh college leaves thirteen young women dead, along with the twenty-year-old gunman, Ryan Summers. The aftermath is told…
All the Hidden Truths begins the day before a shooting at an Edinburgh college leaves thirteen young women dead, along with the twenty-year-old gunman, Ryan Summers. The aftermath is told through Ryan’s mother Moira, victim Abigail’s mother Ishbel, and promoted DI Helen Birch.
What affected me most was the space Askew gives the mothers. Moira is grieving a son the public has turned into a monster, while Ishbel needs to understand why Abigail was killed first. Their pain is different, but neither is allowed to remain private once journalist Grant Lockley begins feeding blame and speculation to an audience.
This is less about solving a crime than watching grief become evidence, entertainment and accusation. Edinburgh feels immediate throughout, from Greyfriars and the Meadows to Birch’s Portobello home. Thoughtful, angry and deeply humane, it asks how well we know those closest to us, and who controls the story after tragedy.
As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.
In the wake of the Three Rivers College shooting, Edinburgh looks for certainty. The facts are quickly gathered. Names, times, sequences. What remains absent is the reason, and the absence weighs heavily.
Three women are left to carry that weight. DI Helen Birch works the case with care and persistence, aware that clarity may not bring comfort. Ishbel, the mother of the first victim, moves through grief that resists explanation. Moira, the killer’s mother, searches for some understanding of the son she thought she knew.
Their lives circle the same unanswered question. As public anger sharpens and the need for blame grows louder, the truth seems to recede rather than come into focus.
This is literary crime fiction rooted in character and restraint. It considers grief, responsibility and the stories people reach for when meaning feels out of reach, asking what is lost when certainty is demanded too quickly.
Books in Glasgow
Crime & Mystery
Crime & Mystery
Books in Dundee & Fife
Crime & Mystery
Crime & Mystery
Crime & Mystery
Crime & Mystery
Books in Edinburgh
Crime & Mystery
Books in Edinburgh
Crime & Mystery