SHADOWS OF SOUNDS - Alex Gray

I am all over the place with this series, and I don't think that's helping my enjoyment of these books one little bit.  Nor, mind you, is the line blazoned all over the front cover 'Glasgow's Answer to Ian Rankin'.... sorry, but that's setting the bar just a tad on the high side isn't it....?  So high that you can't help feeling that, as a reader, you're going to be looking for reasons to jiggle that bar.  Mind you, from memory, there was something similar screaming from the front cover of the last book in the series I read - which also did not live up to the expectation set.

There's something, unfortunately somewhat unmemorable about SHADOWS OF SOUNDS.  Whilst reasonably competently plotted somehow the storyline doesn't quite fire with the assurance, or firmness of many recently read Scottish crime fiction tales.  The character of Lorimer is developing a little (the last in the series I read seemed to have him more of a bit player), but somehow he's still grey.  When writing this review, I notice that my notes on the book include how hard it is to draw an assured enough portrait of the man to aid recollection.

Not, I hasten to add, did I particularly dislike the book, or resent the time taken to read it.  I just don't have much of a memory of it, and during the reading, I couldn't seem to get past the idea that if this is Glasgow's answer to Rankin and Edinburgh, Glasgow's not as edgy as I thought it was.