A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride.

     MacBride is the author of the Logan McRae and the Ash Henderson novels. This is the beginning of a new series about the Misfit squad, where Police Scotland dump the cops who are troublemakers or don't fit in. DC Callum MacGregor is there because his superiors think he took a bribe to destroy a crime scene. This is a funny book full of banter and jokes and neurotic policemen. Callum is first shown chasing a suspect and of course armed only with a large baton holder and a taser. By the time the chase is through, he is bleeding and bruised and has discovered a mummified body.
     His superior's opinion is that it was stolen from a museum, and Callum is given the job of tracking it down. But then they are called out on a missing persons case and find a mummified body in the trunk of a car, then to an apartment for a noise complaint and there is another mummified body in the bathtub. All of a sudden there is a serial killer on the loose in Oldcastle, and the Misfit squad is given the job of finding him.
     Callum  has to deal with the other members of the squad and their peccadilloes, his dying boss, his pregnant former cop girlfriend, and the constant everyday rain.  Unexpectedly, the body of his mother is found after twenty-five years missing along with his father and brother. He also has to face the pedophile who tried to molest him on the day his family went missing.
     These are trying times for Callum, but this case cements the squad together. This book has many twists and turns but hums right along for all 608 pages. Hopefully this will not be the last of the Misfit squad.
    

Harbour Street

Ann Cleeves is the best selling author of two very different mysteries.  One series stars Jimmy Perez and takes place on the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland.  Harbour Street is the sixth book in the Vera Stanhope series, which takes place in Newcastle in the north of England.  Vera is not your typical detective though she is smart, bold, and patient..  She is also overweight, out of shape and irrascible.

This case begins during a bad snowstorm in the city of Newcastle.  Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are on the Metro train returning home when it is stopped in its tracks by the snow.  Everyone disembarks, except for one elderly lady who Jessie discovers is dead. Margaret Krukowski was stabbed in the back, assailant not seen.  Vera and her team, including Joe, are assigned to the case.

Margaret lived and worked in a boarding house in Mardle Northumberland run by Kate and her two teenage children.  She also volunteered at a shelter for abused women and was active in the local church.  So the list of suspects include the other boarders, the women at the home, and those who reside or work in the neighborhood.

Vera, Joe, Holly, and Charlie work overtime to check out suspects.  Vera deals with supervising more and less and with Holly who wants praise and attention, which is not Vera's supervisory strength.  As the team delves into Margaret's past, which seems to contain the impetus for the crime, another woman is murdered, which throws the case back into the present.

Vera is a wonderful character.  The stories progress slowly so the different characters can be studied.  The weather always seems to play its own part in her novels, and the snow works to her advantage on several occasions.  These novels are published in England about a year earlier than available in the United States.  So this book has already been filmed as part of the "Vera" series.  The entire series is available at the library.  And if you like these, check out her Jimmy Perez books.