En ny bekantskap i poliskåren i Skottland. Kommisarie McLean ska försöka lösa många underliga mordfall som inte verkar höra ihop alls, eller har de något gemensamt? Spännande och slutet sträckläste jag. Kommer att läsa fler böcker i serien (som ska komma snart hoppas jag).

Newly minted Inspector McLean is assigned a ridiculously difficult case. A girl, dead for at least fifty years, has been found walled up and ritually disemboweled in the basement of a house being renovated. Another case involves an important local man and some recent burglaries. And to top it off, McLean’s grandmother dies leaving him 5 million pounds.

It’s a moderately interesting story although some of the events, like the inheritance, seem superfluous unless intended to be relevant in future series title. Fortunately, the hint of supernatural involvement remained just that, but even the mere suggestion was a bit off-putting.

The author says in a note that the novel was fleshed out from a short-story and it does have a bloated feel sometimes. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and I’ll continue with the series.

N.B. The publisher’s blurb is stupid. Update: There are two different publisher's blurbs and two different covers: one, demon-red; the other, darker blue. The blue cover's description is more accurate.

This book was ok, I didn’t really buy into the supernatural aspect of it and wasn’t shocked or wowed at any point.

It was an easy read and was fairly enjoyable, but wasn’t the best. Hopefully the rest of the McLean series is better/more realistic...

The book is amazing! will definitely keep you on your toes. Can't wait to read the next one :)

Tony McLean is a newly minted Detective Inspector. He is running several investigations, including the brutal murders of several very prominent Edinburgh citizens, who have been found mutilated. McLean is also investigating a decades-old murder, the body of a young woman has been discovered, dating back to the 1940s, in a bizarrely-ritualistic manner. Do the current series of murders have anything to do with that very cold case? McLean has some insights into that matter that are not what one can actually post in a police document. I have just been introduced to this series and I am quite intrigued with Tony McLean; he is an interesting character with some intriguing relationships. Highly recommended, especially if you like British police procedurals.

I absolutely loved this. I bought it cheap off a bookbub email mostly because it's set in Edinburgh, where I spent one of the best years of my life. I was expecting a gritty crime novel, and Natural Causes certainly delivers on that front. One thing I really enjoyed about this that I don't often see in police procedurals is that Inspector McLean is just drowning in casework. So he's got not only the most important case, but also a bunch of other seemingly unrelated cases going on at the same time. When the ultimate solution arrives, it's not so much that it was a clever twist I wasn't expecting as that I, like McLean, had a hard time seeing it amongst all the information. Some readers may find this confusing or annoying, but I loved it.

I really wish the publisher hadn't put that first paragraph on the summary because it kills a pretty significant amount of suspense in the story as we don't know whether the events were supernatural or not. To Oswald's credit, I felt that this worked perfectly as both a crime novel and a horror novel, which is something I haven't really seen very often outside of the Joe Pitt Casebooks. Highly recommended to fans of either genre.

I am going to give this book 3 out of 5 stars.... why? Might you ask... well I will start off with the positives. I love the fact it feels real and the characters feel alive and not just lifeless... I love the use of supernatural aspects but it’s not obvious and neither is it unbelievable. But and there’s a few... I wasn’t happy with how MANY deaths ( I mean don’t get me wrong I have read plenty of crime books with more deaths) until he got to the answers because half way through I KNEW WHO THE KILLER was... I got bored with bumbling detective trope and just thought the leap of intuition could have come much earlier. All in all it was a good first novel and a good introduction to a series ( though I know this may sound a bit odd but I would have preferred the previous first chapter it would have set it up so much better) I don’t like it when the author intends to shock and introduce what happens then has to change it due to sensitive people it’s a murder thriller book what do people expect? Anyway a good start.

Interesting start to a series ... will have to read more to determine if I like where it is headed.