Torch: The second installment (Rhona MacLeod, 2)

Our summary description

As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

In Edinburgh, on the threshold of the New Year, a young homeless woman dies in a fire that is too deliberate to dismiss. Her friend Jaz, left with grief and anger, begins to search for answers of his own.

Across the city, further fires follow a troubling pattern. Forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is drawn north from Glasgow to determine whether the cases are connected. As the streets fill with visitors and anticipation builds towards Hogmanay, her investigation brings her into conflict with Severino MacRae, the city’s fire investigator, whose methods and instincts differ sharply from her own.

The fires continue, each one sharpening the sense of threat. While Jaz edges closer to the truth about his friend’s death, Rhona and MacRae are forced into an uneasy collaboration, aware that time is narrowing and the next strike is already imagined.

A work of crime fiction grounded in character and place, Torch moves through winter streets where celebration and danger exist side by side.