My review of Stuart B. MacBride's HALFHEAD on Eurocrime

A review I wrote of HALFHEAD, Scottish crime writer Stuart MacBride's first standalone novel outside of his acclaimed DS Logan McRae series, has now been published on EuroCrime.

HALFHEAD is set in a Glasgow of the future - a future of overcrowded super high-rise slums, militaristic police, and a new method for dealing with criminals. Serious offenders suffer half-heading; lobotomized and their lower jaw removed, they’re put to work as mindless drones cleaning public areas. However one murderous half-head ‘wakes up’ after six years, and sets out for revenge. She’s pursued by William Hunter, Assistant Director of the ‘Network’, who discovers his investigation is linked to a conspiracy to fuel violence amongst the underclass.

I enjoyed HALFHEAD, and will be reading more of MacBride (both his DS McRae series, and future standalones). You can read another review of HALFHEAD by fellow EuroCrime reviewer Paul Blackburn here.

MacBride is an award-winning crime writer, previously famous for his Aberdeen-set DS Logan McRae series (which he will be continuing). HALFHEAD (which he writes under the name Stuart B. MacBride) is based on a manuscript he wrote before he broke through a few years ago with his debut McRae novel COLD GRANITE.

As I've mentioned previously, I was fortunate enough to meet and interview MacBride while he was in New Zealand earlier this year. You can read more about that interview in this earlier blog post. Online subscribers to Good Reading can read my feature article on MacBride, which included discussion about HALFHEAD and was published in the October 2009 issue, here.

Have you read Stuart MacBride? What do you think of the DS Logan McRae series and/or HALFHEAD? What do you think of my review? Comments welcome.