Dying Light (Logan McRae, Book 2) MacBride, Stuart

Aberdeen in winter is already grim. Aberdeen with a serial rapist hunting students is worse. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae is back, investigating brutal attacks that escalate from assault to murder — and the media frenzy isn't helping. When a body turns up burned beyond recognition, Logan's caught between a sadistic killer, departmental politics, and his own demons from the last case. Stuart MacBride's second Logan McRae novel is darker than the first, trading some of the black humor for genuine dread. The Scottish crime scene is rendered with forensic detail (sometimes uncomfortably so), and Aberdeen's rain-soaked streets feel as bleak as the crimes committed on them. MacBride doesn't flinch from violence, but he earns it with sharp plotting and characters you actually care about. If you liked *Cold Granite*, this raises the stakes. If you love Rankin's Rebus but wish he operated in an even grimmer city, you're in the right place.