Skinner's Festival

Book 2: BOB SKINNER

by Quintin Jardine

Genres: General Fiction; City Life; Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Every August thousands of tourists and performers flood into Edinburgh for its famous festival. But this year, on the very first day, an explosion rocks Princes Street, and a man is killed. A few hours later, a threatening letter is delivered to the Secretary of State – apparently from a freedom group – demanding political separation from England. Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner, head of CID, quickly assembles his team, with SAS backup. Yet, despite a huge security check, the escalating situation claims its second victim. Skinner begins to suspect that this is no ordinary group of bloodthristy fanatics, but skilled professionals with access to highly sophisticated weapons; a trained task force with an agenda that now threatens the ancient honour of Scotland…

Release date: November 13, 2008

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 420

Sample

Did I really want to be ennobled? Did I see myself as Baron Skinner of Gullane?

No I didn’t, when the question had been put. Being Chief Constable Skinner gave me a higher profile than I liked, and I’ve been happy to be shot of that title. However, I’d been invited to discuss the possibility, in good faith as far as I knew, so it would have been churlish of me to reject it out of hand . . . even though the invitation had come to me via my ex-wife.

And also, as I said to Sarah, the potential Lady Skinner, while I had been a visitor to the Westminster village several times in the later years of my police career, I had never been in their lordships’ House; the chance to cross that off my bucket list was too good to pass up.

Not so long ago, I wouldn’t have had time to fit it in, not when I was a serving officer, head of Scotland’s largest force before it was replaced by one even larger, the controversial and almost universally unloved Scottish Police Service.

My critics, and there were plenty of them, rounded on me when I decided not to pursue my application for the position of chief constable, but it isn’t a decision I’ve ever regretted. The truth of the matter was, I was well past my ‘best before’ date as a cop when I quit; most of my close colleagues knew that, but none of them ever told me. I like to believe they were too loyal, rather than too fearful, to suggest it.

Any post-career visions or fears I might have entertained of becoming a house parent and scratch golfer were soon blown away, by a couple of private commissions from friends and acquaintances with problems that needed sorting, and another from my older daughter Alex, who is beginning to make a name for herself as a criminal defence lawyer.

They helped me keep my hand in, so to speak, and led me into a couple of situations that got my investigative juices flowing. . .