Running private investigator and funeral home businesses means trouble is never far away, and the Skelf women take on their most perplexing, chilling cases yet in book two of this darkly funny, devastatingly tense and addictive new series!
Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors' and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can't help looking into the dead driver's shadowy life.
While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny's ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women's lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy's disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness - but could the real threat be to themselves?
Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.
About the Author
Doug Johnstone is an author, journalist and musician based in Edinburgh. Doug is also a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow. Doug has released seven albums in various bands, and is drummer, vocalist and occasional guitarist for the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He reviews books for The Big Issue magazine, is player-manager for Scotland Writers Football Club and has a PhD in nuclear physics.
Industry Reviews
"'This enjoyable mystery is also a touching and often funny portrayal of grief, as the three tough but tender main characters pick up the pieces and carry on: more, please."
Guardian
"A fiendish mystery that is also deeply moving and laced with suitably dark humour. The start of a mustread series."
Mark Billingham, author, Lazybones
"A lovely, sad tale, beautifully told and full of understanding."
Times
"A new series from the criminally underrated Johnstone. His warm portrait of the tough, indomitable Skelf women is gripping and blackly humorous."
Observer
"A tense ride."
Big Issue
"Emotionally complex, richly layered and darkly funny. An addictive blend of Case Histories and Six Feet Under."
Chris Brookmyre, author, Places in the Darkness
"Flawed, funny, braveand well set up for a series. I wouldn't call him cosy, but there's warmth to Johnstone's writing."
Sunday Times
"I was addicted from the first page; gripping, gritty and darkly funny as hell."
Erin Kelly, author, He Said/She Said
"Showcases a writer at the peak of his powers, except that with every book, Doug Johnstone just gets better."
Val McDermid, author, A Darker Domain
