Marten Claridge's Nobody's Fool

Nobody's Fool

INTRODUCING FRANK McMORRAN

To all appearances Dominic Bain was a model citizen. He worked hard, kept himself to himself, and cared for his ageing mother. All perfectly normal. Until the day a demon from his past returned and triggered memories better left buried. For suddenly revealed beneath the passive veneer lay nobody's fool—a killer as ruthless as he was mad.

Detective Inspector McMorran was also nobody's fool. Suspended from duty pending a Fatal Accident Inquiry he finds himself temporarily reinstated and instructed to capture The Hangman, a particularly vicious psychopath. Obstructed by a Chief Inspector who would rather see him fail than succeed, McMorran must race against time to salvage his sinking career. As murder follows murder, McMorran's investigation takes him headlong from the backstreets of Edinburgh to the forested hills of Perthshire towards a confrontation that will reveal once and for all just who is nobody's fool.

Nobody's Fool was first published by Headline. It was also published by Shinchosa (Japan) and Walker Books (USA); sold to book clubs; and shortlisted for the Fullbright Chandler Award.

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"Nobody's Fool has already, and justifiably, won a spot on the shortlist for the Fulbright Chandler Award. Marten Claridge is clever enough to crosscut Bain's psychotic obsessions and progressive slayings with McMorran's narrative of detection and deduction and thus creates a grisly kind of duet that vibrates with tension and holds you fast to the page throughout. The details of police work are meticulously accurate and the copper's professional and political bickering adds just the right note of realism as McMorran begins to unravel the secrets of the deadly Dominic's past. The characters are drawn with clarity and even-handed compassion, with crisp dialogue and a fine sense of pace and atmosphere."

Scotland on Sunday