The Unseen Hand and Other Short Stories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798232526245)

The Unseen Hand and Other Short Stories introduces Fred Buchanan, an ex-cop turned private eye walking the rain-slick streets of Edinburgh. He's sharp, cynical, and unflinchingly tenacious - a man who chain-smokes Camels, drinks vodka straight from the bottle, and takes the cases no one else will touch.

From genteel care homes hiding dark conspiracies to the backstreet pubs of Leith where old secrets resurface, Fred digs into the lives polite society would rather keep buried. These are stories of missing persons, forged wills, whispered corruption, and the quiet disappearances that never make the papers.

But Fred's no hero. He's haunted by his own mistakes, estranged from his wife, and barely tolerated by his sister Margaret - who keeps his business running while trying to keep him from self-destruction. Sometimes he finds answers. Sometimes he only finds more questions. And sometimes the city swallows the truth whole.

Written in a lean, hard-boiled style that echoes Chandler and Hammett but grounded in the grit of modern Scotland, this collection is a prelude to the forthcoming Fred Buchanan Mysteries - full-length novels that will see Edinburgh's most reluctant PI take on cases that cut to the city's heart.

If you like crime fiction steeped in atmosphere, with a detective who sees too much and says just enough, The Unseen Hand and Other Short Stories is your way into the shadowed closes and smoky backrooms of Edinburgh hard-boiled Tartan Noir.