This is a darkly comic standalone mystery by best-selling author Stuart MacBride. The main protagonist is Police Scotland's Detective Constable Callum MacGregor.
DC Callum MacGregor, suspected of bollixing a crime scene to help a mobster called Big Johnny Simpson, is relegated to the 'Misfit Mob' - where disgraced and damaged cops go to wither. The leader of the squad is DI Flora Malcolmson (Mother), who survived a heart attack. In addition to Callum, other team members are DS Andy McAdams - who has cancer; DS Dotty Hodgkin - who lost half a leg; DC Watt - who's disliked by fellow cops; and DC Rosalind Franklin - a black woman who assaulted a superior officer who harassed her.
Callum's colleagues are always heckling him for taking a bribe to compromise a crime scene.....
.....but in reality Callum's nine-month pregnant girlfriend Elaine, a crime scene investigator, messed up the site.
Callum took the blame so Elaine would retain her maternity benefits, and the DC now supports Elaine - and caters to her cravings for Nutella and pickles - as they await the birth of their baby 'Peanut.'
At the beginning of the story, Callum chases down Big Johnny Simpson's henchman Ainsley Dugsdale. This is no easy task and Dugsdale gives Callum's crotch the iron squeeze before he's arrested. To add to Callum's woes, two kids watching the struggle harangue him with the epithet Piggy Piggy Piggy and steal his wallet. This leads to Callum tracking down the little thieves' mother, a battered girl with four children, an absent husband, and no money. Callum's determination to help the family forms one thread of the narrative.
In another storyline, the Misfit Mob discovers two mummified bodies - one in a garbage tip and one in the trunk of a car. Normally, the misfits are not assigned murder investigations, but other divisions are overloaded, so the castoffs get the case. It turns out a nefarious serial killer is at work, a disturbed person who kills and smoke-dries people (alongside fish) to make the humans into 'gods.' All members of the misfit squad work this case, which turns out to be complicated and difficult.
As Callum goes about his business, we get a flashback to a tragedy in his past. During a family trip when Callum was five, his dad stopped at a rest area so little Callum could go pee. In the loo, Callum was harassed by a kiddy fiddler who left when other men walked in. Callum was afraid to leave the restroom, and when he finally did, his family's caravan was there but his mom, dad, and twin brother were gone. Callum is still searching for answers about what happened to his family.
In fact Callum seems to be the unluckiest bloke in Scotland. He's always getting battered, bitten, unfairly accused, disrespected, lied to, taken advantage of, and blamed for things that go wrong.
Callum's only real friend seems to be disabled Dotty, who gives him a helping hand when needed.
Much of the fun of the book lies with the eccentric characters, all of whom have quirks. Mother gives out gummy sweets when she's pleased; cancer-ridden McAdams speaks in poems and haikus; wheelchair-bound Dotty craves chocolates from the vending machine; friendless Watt is sneaky and manipulative; and harassed Franklin is a militant feminist who looks for reasons to scold men.
In the end, all the storylines converge in surprising ways.
The book is long but moves fast, and is well-worth reading.
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