There are two distinct categories of good book. There’s the page turner that keeps you reading faster and faster, flipping the pages into the night with ever increasing enthusiasm to find out what happens. Then there’s the books that you want to savour and you turn the pages slower and slower, you want to know the conclusion but you don’t want to miss a step of the journey, every page is magical and you need to feel it every minute you can. And what’s more, you trust the author to get you there, you know you won’t end up feeling let down. This book is the second type and the first book this year (2001) that I’ve finished thinking that it was the best book I’ve read this year.

I was a little disappointed when I heard that Manda Scott’s fourth book wouldn’t feature Kellen Stewart who was the star of her first three books. I’d got to like her and I look forward to meeting her again. If she has any friends left to get killed of course ;-)

Orla McLeod who took the centre role in No Good Deed was as good a replacement for Kellen as I could have asked for. Not a picture of perfect womanhood but a flawed and tough product of a life lived too close to violent death. Together with her colleagues from the police and a nine year old boy who’s seen more than a nine year old should have seen she plays out this fabulous story in both the dives of Glasgow’s East End and the mountainous countryside of the West Scots coast.

Now I hope Scott writes more standalone novels too…