Lies of the Land

A prominent Glaswegian lawyer’s murder propels Dolan’s compelling sequel to 2015’s Potter’s Field. After a night on the town with friends, prosecutor Maddy Shannon awakens the next morning to find herself fully clothed but in bed with a strange man, who turns out to be defense attorney Doug Mason of the prestigious firm of JCG Miller. Mason soon gets a text informing him that his boss, Julian Miller, has been murdered. Shannon has a habit of becoming too involved too fast in her cases, but that doesn’t stop her poking into the homicide, which has landed on the plate of her policeman friend, Det. Insp. Alan Coulter. She learns that Miller also went out the previous night, with fellow legal partner Bill Crichton and a real estate bigwig, Tom Hughes. As Coulter digs deeper into Miller’s professional and personal life, the case takes an explosive turn as a second and then a third body turns up, all of them linked. A sharply drawn heroine, brutal violence with a shot of dark humor—this is classic Tartan noir. (Dec.)