Please note this book was previously published as Human Face.

The Isle of Skye is a place where the air feels thick with silence. The inhabitants keep their distance, and the cold, drafty lodge across the bay is steeped in secrecy. Every glance lingers, every word measured. On this island, nothing is as it seems.

Detective Kelso Strang hasn’t been sent to Skye to solve a case — he’s been sent there to disappear.

Still reeling from the sudden death of his wife, Strang is a man on the edge and his behaviour is worrying the team.

When reports reach head office that a young woman has vanished from a remote lodge, Superintendent Jane Borthwick seizes the opportunity to get Strang out of Edinburgh and sends him to investigate.

Strang arrives at the remote coastal village of Balnasheil to find the case is darker than it first appeared. At the centre is Balnasheil Lodge, home to Human Face, a charity that claims to help the vulnerable. But Strang quickly senses there’s more to the lodge than its polished image.

The locals are tight-lipped. The charity operates behind closed doors. And its enigmatic director, Adam Carnegie, is clearly hiding something.

Then a body is found, half-buried in the moorland peat — and what began as a routine missing persons inquiry becomes a hunt for a killer.

MEET THE DETECTIVE
DI Kelso Strang, once an army sniper and now a senior officer with the Edinburgh police force, is still reeling from the sudden death of his wife. It left him hollow, short-tempered, and increasingly difficult to reach. His job is the only thing that keeps him going. He now lives alone in a harbour cottage, where silence suits him better than small talk and black coffee keeps him steady. He reads old poetry, owns far too many maps and has a scar down one side of his face that people don’t ask about twice.