Scottish-noir, grief, grieving, depression, friends, friendship, arson, crime-thriller, suspense, series, investigations, investigators, police-detectives, Police Scotland, fire-service, survivor's guilt, PTSD, panic-attacks, family-drama, family-dynamics, family-history, spousal-abuse, group-dynamics, cruelty, psychological, psychopath, triggers, self-worth-issues, mental-health-issues, secrets, lies, wrenching, unputdownable, firefighters, angst, anger-issues, unpleasant-co-worker, murder, vengeance, justice***** DS Malkie McCulloch is a seasoned detective with Police Scotland who acquired a full-blown case of PTSD eight months ago when his mother died and father seriously injured in a house fire. His offsider/partner DC Steph Lang has self worth issues and more due to family issues. Each of them are substantially messed up by their newest case. The fire is not at a residence, but at a distillery, but there was a corpse and also a fireman died. This whole mess is unwoven one thread at a time and there is even suspicion that one of the fireman was the arsonist. The blasted story grabbed me and held on through supper and into the night! I requested and received a free temporary EARC from Storm Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you! #ADeadlyFlame #NetGalley #DSMalkieMcCullochBk3

A fire at a whisky warehouse where they find a body inside and a firefighter dies. A intriguing case that is also personal to Malkie as his mother recently died in a house fire. Good to see the characters develop and the interaction between Malkie and Steph as they try to solve the case. A well plotted books that moves along nicely. Thanks to Storm publishing and Netgalley for this review ARC.

DS Malkie McCulloch's third outing, this time for a fire at a whisky bonded warehouse where a dead body was found in one of the offices and a firefighter lost his life. There are so many variables, was the fire arson? Was the firefighter's equipment faulty? Was the person dead before the fire was started? Did they start the fire? Why did one of the firefighters take the dead firefighter's breathing apparatus away in contravention of standard procedure? Why was one firefighter shouting at another? This was a gripping detective story, although the prologue made it obvious (to me) what had happened (although not necessarily why). However, ... I feel that in his attempts to create some personal lives for Malkie and Steph outside the cases Doug Sinclair draws with a very thick pen and is repetitious, very repetitious, to the point where, frankly, I no longer believed in the storyline. (view spoiler) I also find Doug Sinclair's depiction of women a bit problematic, you might argue that no-one comes out of this looking good and that would be a fair point, but I just feel that one way or another they are all victims. I said with the first book that maybe these were too dark and tortured for me and this has reinforced that view. I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. Available on Kindle Unlimited.