Whisky in Small Glasses by Denzil Meyrick is the first book in the DCI Daley series, set on the west coast of Scotland. Loaned to me by a friend with an excellent recommendation, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this book as I’d recently discovered the Stuart Macbride DS Logan series set in Aberdeen and felt a great deal of loyalty towards that. How silly am I! I should have known that just because one write creates fabulous characters and plots in a part of the world you love doesn’t mean another cannot!
And boy, does Meyrick create some terrific characters and a cracker of a story. When a body is washed up in the remote township of Kinloch on the West Coast of Scotland, DCI Daley is called in to investigate. Carrying his own emotional baggage in the form of a rocky marriage, DCI Daley and his wonderful side-kick, the heavy drinking and smoking DS Scott, have to put up with the suspicion and parochialism of the locals – especially the constabulary. But DCI is a no BS kind of guy and soon earns the enmity and respect of various people.
But when the prime suspect in the murder is killed and more bodies start appearing, and the DCI Daley’s wife and the man he suspects is her lover also turn up unexpectedly, the plot doesn’t just thicken, it becomes both personal and deadly.
filled with rich and evocative language, characters you quickly grow to care about and a page-turning plot, this is a wonderful first in what I quickly discovered (because I swiftly read all four books in the series thus far) is a compelling new series. Highly recommended.
