STITCH UP

William McIntyre (Sandstone, £8.99)

Of all the places for a criminal defence lawyer to be operating, a small practice in Linlithgow is far from the most likely to bring in profitable, high-profile cases. But that’s the charm of William McIntyre’s hero Robbie Munro, who works well away from the seedy centres of criminal activity but somehow never fails to find trouble. The fourth “Best Defence” novel finds Munro settled down with new wife Joanna, his dad and brother Malky living within shouting distance and his six-year-old daughter a constant presence who has to be continually shooed out of the room so Robbie can discuss a case.

And he has not one but two cases to juggle in this latest instalment. Ricky Hertz, convicted of killing three children in Linlithgow, has just been released, pending an appeal, after 18 years in prison. Hertz was convicted on the basis of a dubious confession and evidence provided by Robbie’s father, a retired policeman, evidence which is now being disputed. Robbie is in a predicament which seems to have no easy way out. Out of family loyalty, he has no choice but to defend his father, but if the old cop really did plant evidence it goes against all the defence lawyer’s instincts to see an innocent man put back inside.

At the same time as all this is going on, an old girlfriend, Joanna, re-enters Munro’s life, years after she ditched him for Hercule, the multi-millionaire boss of a pharmaceutical company, who has been found dead of a barbiturate overdose in an exclusive Edinburgh hotel. Joanna is convinced that he was murdered and wants her old boyfriend to investigate, a hard request to turn down when it comes with £15,000 and a trip to Rome. The mystery of Hercule’s death is a bit of a puzzler involving wealthy relatives, one of whom may have wanted rid of him. But it’s the Hertz case that McIntyre has invested with the best twists and turns, the most intractable dilemmas and the highest stakes. It’s cleverly enough devised that the author can even present Munro with a neatly-wrapped solution to his dilemma, knowing that his creation is too good a man to use it.

McIntyre’s legal knowledge keeps the plot firmly rooted in Scots Law, and he’s clearly a fan of old-school detective fiction too, bestowing on Stitch Up a kind of “tartan noir” version of that hard-boiled tone. (“I let go of Jill like she was the smooth side of a toasted bagel” was my favourite.) But that does have the downside of making the characters’ dialogue very arch and knowing, as though they’re feeding each other lines all the time, and they have an annoying habit of appearing unannounced in doorways at just the right moment to hear something that concerns them. McIntyre’s greatest strength is not naturalistic speech. But that’s a minor flaw in what is otherwise a compelling, well-plotted mystery which, thanks to its small-town setting, makes a plot concerning serial child-murderers and millionaire CEOs feel almost homely.

ALASTAIR MABBOTT