Amid the flying paintballs and flowing Shiraz even the most cynical admit the organizers have pulled some surprises - stalkers in the forest, power cuts in the night, mass mobile phone thefts, disappearing staff, disappearing guests: there's nothing can bring out people's hidden strengths or break down inter-personal barriers quite like not having a clue what's going on and being scared out of your wits. Jasmine soon uncovers Tessa’s involvement in a drug-riddled Highlands estate retreat replete with occult rituals, which implicates more than a few people in the upper echelons of Scotland’s arts scene. Tessa’s disappearance in the summer of 1981 begins to look increasingly like murder, but the guilty will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden.

Nesbitt is probably the best thing in this show - and even he doesn't quite fit. How anyone can read the book, and then adapt it to this piece of dross is beyond me. I have quite a few physical Christopher Brookmyre books waiting to read but wanted to start with the first of the series. Nesbitt plays a journalist who has a really bad hangover (the quite ugly one morning in the title) who walks in to a neighbors flat to find him brutally murdered, he then has to find out what happened.The crew of an oceanic research vessel goes missing in the Pacific along with their mini-submarine. An evangelical media star holds a rally next door to a convention in LA devoted to 'nubile' cinematic entertainment. The cops know there's going to be trouble and they are not disappointed. I listened to this in my car and on a number of occasions simply sat in the driveway before going inside because I wanted to hear "just a little bit more". Was tempted to take a road trip somewhere just so I could listen to it all at once! But when Fallan is arrested for the murder of a criminal her mother knew since childhood, Jasmine is finally forced to enter his domain: a place where violence is a way of life and vengeance spans generations. The story is set in Scotland so obviously a Scottish narrator suits perfectly. David Tennant has an extremely expressive voice, keeping the dialogue entertaining and the narrative passages engaging. Plus, he has a dead sexy voice that's no hardship to listen to either! Detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod has one major Glaswegian gangster in the mortuary and another in the cells for killing him - which ought to be cause for celebration. Catherine is not smiling, however. From the moment she discovered a symbol daubed on the victim's head, she has understood that this case is far more dangerous than it appears on the surface, something that could threaten her family and end her career.

In the novel “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which species is described as not evil, but callous, officious, bureaucratic, and bad-tempered? To new nanny Amanda, the Temple family seem to have it all: the former actress; the famous professor; their three successful grown-up children. But like any family, beneath the smiles and hugs there lurks far darker emotions. I returned this book without finishing it but I did give it a good three hours before calling it a day. As for Dalziel and Slaughter, they are strong characters in their own right. Readers who are looking for strong female protagonists will be pleased with these women. Each is unique, but both are intelligent, resourceful, good at their jobs and interesting. And neither is at all afraid to tell Parlabane when he’s gone too far. The three protagonists work well together and complement each other.If you want an undemanding and reasonably amusing hour or so, then it's OK to watch this. It's not all that bad, really. Yeah, it's got more lapses in logic than I care to describe here and might tax the patience of people - like myself, I have to admit - who are inclined to throw things at the TV on occasion, but it's funny at least. Just because it's not always INTENTIONALLY funny, there's no need to let that get you down. As one battles her demons and the other chases her ghosts, these two very different detectives will ultimately confront the secrets that have entangled both of their fates since before Jasmine was even born. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some rather shady and dangerous characters persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories”, “Nights at the Circus”, and “Wise Children” are notable works of which British writer?

Meanwhile, out-of-work actress Jasmine Sharp is doing her best to be a private investigator, but her PI mentor Uncle Jim, who was meant to be showing her the ropes, has just disappeared in mysterious circumstances. She begins looking at the open cases that Jim was investigating - which sends her into trouble, fast. Another sub-plot is the relationship between Nesbitt's character and the police officer on the case, this is a bit distracting from the main plot and doesn't really fit in the story, A good sub-plot is about a hit-man (the one that performed the murder, revealed early in the story) with a missing finger who then stays at a bed and breakfast who kills the owners (annette Crosbie) dog and tries to dispose of it, this is an interesting and entertaining sub-plot that doesn't have relevance on the story.Each "chapter" ends with some jazzy music as though to underline a joke has just been told. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood but I didn't find it either funny, intriguing and I didn't really care what happened.