McNee isn't a cop anymore, but he can't turn his back on the call of duty. As a private investigator, he can still chase after wrongdoers and...oh, for crying out loud, do you really care? It's a mystery novel. Someone dies, someone else investigates the death, you wonder who did it and in the end you find out. There is your summary.

As far as mysteries goes, this was less engaging than most for me. I had a hard time being interested in the beginning and a quickly grew a dislike for the macho tough-guy lead character. At 240 pages the mystery aspect lacks depth and falls flat before it can really begin, and it still feels like 15 pages could have been cut out of the end without effecting much.

I admit I am not fond of the genre, but this one isn't even terribly exciting. The only thing saving this from a worse rating is the unveiling of McNee's past, which is the only thing in the book that kept me turning the pages. Still not terribly interesting, though. ( )

skilled writing ( )

“I’ve already shot a man this evening, so what’s the difference now? Like smoking, it gets easier after the first one, right?” – J. McNee

Dundee, Scotland based J. McNee (full first name never given) is not at a good place in his life when we meet him in author Russel D. McLean’s debut novel, The Good Son. Formerly on the Dundee police force, McNee was forced into early retirement following a car crash that killed his fiancée and left him physically disabled and psychologically crippled.

Now working as a private investigator, McNee receives a visit from local farmer James Robertson whose estranged brother, Daniel, was found hanging from a tree on the family’s farm. Though the police have it down as suicide, James is convinced his brother did not kill himself and hires McNee to investigate what Daniel had been up to during the 30 years since James last saw him.

In addition to putting him at odds with his former colleagues on the police force, McNee’s investigation opens up a Pandora’s box of local thugs, London gangsters and a mysterious woman with connections to both, as a visit to London reveals that Daniel had been working for one of that city’s most notorious gangsters, Gordon Egg.

Not pleased with either Daniel’s unexplained disappearance from London, with a substantial sum of Egg’s money, or McNee’s visit inquiring about him, Egg sends two of his thugs to Dundee to get to the bottom of things. And that’s when things go seriously sideways, as Egg’s thugs, Ayer and Liman, cut a bloody path through Dundee in their efforts to retrieve the missing money.

Convinced that James Robertson knows where the money is, and that he told McNee, Ayer and Liman pay a visit to McNee’s office that results in him being beaten and his office assistant shot. Already burdened with almost suffocating guilt over his fiancée’s death, the shooting of his friend pushes McNee over the edge, to the point he’s determined to stop Ayer and Liman no matter the cost… and McNee is willing to pay quite a high price.

In McNee, author McLean has done a spectacular job of portraying a man in the seemingly contradictory position of being incapacitated by apathy for his own life, yet driven by guilt over the loss of his fiancée’s. The blunt, edgy dialogue and outbursts of pull no punches violence in The Good Son bring to mind the hard-boiled writing of the legendary Ken Bruen, and I believe it’s a well-deserved comparison. But make no mistake about it, McLean has demonstrated with his debut offering that he has a fresh, unique voice all his own. The Good Son is very, very good indeed. ( )

Too bad the author could not have got the Dundee details a bit more accurate. For example page 130 there is no Observatory on the Law Hill. It is on Balgay Hill. Park Place is in the West End of town. Dundee deserves better. ( )