THE HANGMAN'S SONG

The body of a man is found hanging in an empty house. To the Edinburgh police force, this appears to be a simple suicide case. But something about the scene strikes Detective Inspector Tony McLean as off...

Days later another body is found hanging from an identical rope, with a noose tied in the identical way. McLean is convinced that these people are either being murdered or somehow coerced into suicide. Then a third body is found.

While McLean attempts to solve the case — assuming he can convince his superiors that it is a case — he also must deal with the fallout from his last big investigation: A coworker is still hospitalized six months after being hurt on the job, and his relations with his superior officer don’t seem to be improving. Will he be able to navigate the office politics and figure out what is going on before someone else is found hanging?

JAMES OSWALD is the author of the Detective Inspector McLean series of crime novels by night. During the day he runs a 350 acre livestock farm in North East Fife, Scotland, where he raises Highland cattle and sheep.