View source for See Them Run by Marion Todd

{{infobox1
|title=See Them Run
|author=Marion Todd
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=The first in a new police procedural series is a good read and shows a great deal of promise.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=292
|publisher=Canelo
|date=October 2019
|isbn=B07X6GLQ3Q
|cover=B07X6GLQ3Q
|aznuk=B07X6GLQ3Q
|aznus=B07X6GLQ3Q
}}

D I Clare Mackay is still relatively new to St Andrew's: she was previously at Maryhill Rd station in Glasgow.  She's left quite a lot behind including a relationship that wasn't going anywhere after Tom failed to support her when the chips were down. She also left a nasty situation, of her own making but not her fault, and St Andrew's is a fresh start.  Not long into the job she's faced with a hit and run death and there's little doubt that it wasn't accidental - the card with the number five suggests murder.  Andy Robb was married to Sandra.  You could say that they had an open marriage but there seemed to be a lot of the 'open' and very little of the 'marriage' left - on both sides, but would she want him dead?

Andy Robb drove a taxi for a living and there didn't seem to be any connection between him and Bruce Gilmartin, who headed up a brewery, but the following night Gilmartin was the next man to die and the card said number four.  Clare Mackay and her team realised that they were up against the clock to find the killer who might have three more victims in his sights.

A new detective series is always a treat and this one has a lot going for it.  I liked Clare Mackay: she's self-aware and certainly not infallible.  There's a glass of wine she'll regret for a while.  But what comes across strongly is a determination to get the job done and the guilty behind bars.  There's a decent team behind her and whilst only the DS - Chris West - came across strongly in this book you sense that there's scope for the future.

The location is good.  There isn't an over-reliance on the golfing and university connections in the town, but if you've visited either the Old Course or the university you'll recognise a lot of the places mentioned.  Clares struggling with the place names too: she'd never even heard of the Swilcan Bridge, a mecca for a lot of golfers.

It's the plot you really want to know about though, isn't it?  It's good, particularly for a first-in-series book when - of necessity - a good bit of background has to be covered.  Some delicate issues are covered (no - I'm not going to tell you!) and Marion Todd deals with them sensitively without needing to go into too much detail.  I had worked out who the killer was ''and'' why - only to find that I was completely wrong despite all the clues being there.

''See Them Run'' was a great read and I'd like to thank the publishers for making a review copy available to the Bookbag.

If you're looking for more crime set in St Andrews we can recommend [[Eye for an Eye (DCI Andy Gilchrist) by T F Muir]].

[[Marion Todd's DI Clare Mackay novels in Chronological Order]]

{{amazontext|amazon=B07X6GLQ3Q}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=B07X6GLQ3Q}}

{{commenthead}}