| Flesh House | 
 enlarge | Author: Stuart Macbride
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £7.27
You Save: £5.72 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 853
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0007244541
EAN: 9780007244546
ASIN: 0007244541
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Those who like their crime thrillers diamond hard (but shot through with macabre humour) need look no further than Stuart MacBride. As Flesh House, his latest, once again proves, he has few equals in this area, and is more than worthy of the ever-growing legion of admirers he is gleaning. His tough protagonist, Logan McRae, is once again negotiating the mean streets of Aberdeen, with violence and threat forever at his elbow. Those who have read Cold Granite, Dying Light and Broken Skin will know what to expect here -- and they'll be aware that they're not in for a comfortable ride.The city is in a state of fear. Some 20 years ago, the Grampian police nailed a particularly vicious serial killer known as The Flesher, a monster who had claimed victims throughout the country. But one of those frequent legal appeals which so often release dangerous criminals into the community has freed him, and when a container with human body parts appears at Aberdeen harbour, it looks like the stage is once again set for carnage on a massive scale. DS Logan McRae (along with his less experienced colleague, Chief Constable Mark Faulds from Birmingham -- who was on the original team tracking down The Flesher), finds himself in charge of one of the most ambitious manhunts city has ever seen. And then members of the original team tracking down their serial killer prey (whose real name is Ken Wiseman) begin to disappear -- and more human meat is making grisly appearances. All of this is delivered with the requisite grasp of tension and characterisation that we have come to expect from Stuart MacBride. There are those who will feel he has gone too far in Flesh House in confronting the less savoury aspects of human behaviour, but fans of uncompromising crime writing will be in their element. --Barry Forshaw
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 And then some August 26, 2008
A little bit more far fetched than the other three (especially the ending) and not as 'unguessable' but still riveting.
Also compelling was the way DI Insch bursts into Grampian Police folklore with the unfortunate sequence of events that leads to his fantastic demise... But will he Bounce back?
Strange how Logan's alternative love interest, built up in previous books, did not get much of a mention at all here (only in despatches)... Not that I'm in to the soppy stuff (or I wouldn't read Macbride!) but for continuity purposes it would have been nice if he'd seen to her at some point.
Can't wait for 'Blind Eye'... Intrigued already!
fUNNY, BUT UNREMITTINGLY GRIM August 24, 2008
The Aberdeen Tourist Board must have collective heart failure every time a novel by Stuart Macbride is published. It's always raining, the streets are overrun with deranged serial killers, and the Grampian Police is full of lazy, backbiting incompetents who never miss an opportunity to put the boot into the long suffering hero DS Logan Macrae. Yet 'Flesh House', Macbride's latest, is a very exciting read, a real page turner, and certainly not to be read last thing at night. It's extremely gruesome and there's no let-up as the unremittingly grim events unfold. I just hope the plot and characters lighten up a bit in Macbride's next book which I eagerly await.
 Readable but little more August 9, 2008
I've read all MacBride's novels but sadly they don't get any better. I can only agree with another reviewer that as a writer, MacBride can't take anything seriously. Because of this, I found some of the quite nasty things in this book, and the so-called gory bits actually quite funny.[e.g. black pudding....has it put me off the stuff? No way!!] My point is that this shouldn't happen in a crime novel. You really should be horrified or feel that the police are getting somewhere in catching nasty villains. What you get here is a Punch + Judy show. Mark Billingham has been a stand-up comedian but knows how far to take humour, when to stop. As a result, he is a very fine crime writer. Equally, I don't think too many people laugh at Stephen King's novels. I think Stuart MacBride is currently caught between a number of stools and needs to take stock.
Loved it/hated it but couldn't stop reading it August 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First Sentence: `No, you listen to me: if my six year old son isn't back here in ten minutes I'm going to come round there and rip you a new arsehole, are we clear?'
Twenty years ago, there was a serial killer knows as "The Flesher" who was purported to kill people and eat them.
Now, seven years after the killer has been released from prison, human meat has been found in a local butcher shop and DS Logan McRae are trying to track down a serial killer dressed in a butcher's apron wearing a Margaret Thatcher mask.
I had a love/hate relationship with this book. Be aware that murders are very graphic and gruesome, but I can deal with that.
My issue is the characters. McRae is about the only remotely likeable character and, even for him, you have very little background or real sense of who he is. The characters are realistic but largely unpleasant.
On the other hand, the plot, while unrelentingly grim, is thoroughly engrossing and delightfully twisty. There was less humor in this book than in ones in the past. A bit more light to offset the dark would have helped.
McBride is definitely a good, skilled writer. I can't say I enjoyed the book, because of the theme, but I couldn't stop reading it.
 Very disappointing August 6, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm as baffled by all those good reviews as I am by the low quality of this book. I've read the other three in the series and couldn't wait to lay my hand on number four - what a mistake.
I won't complain about the bad prose, I knew MacBride is no Shakespeare and I didn't expect him to stun me with graceful words.
But - I did expect to be entertained, I did expect to bite my nails and read all night, I did expect to care about the characters, none of which happened due to an overkill of, well, killing. After a while I had to go back and forth to remind myself who the victims were and why I should care.
Every chapter is a carbon copy of the one before, introduction of victims, chop chop, a red herring here and there (as obvious as daylight and very insulting to the reader's intelligence), enter the cops etc etc and the solution is ridiculous.
Mac Bride tried too hard to shock me and it didn't work!
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