The Missing And The Dead by Stuart MacBride

Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae is feeling good as he heads into his annual evaluation.  He's just caught a killer in a lurid case that had the newspapers on the Aberdeen Police force's back.  Surely the department will recognize his worth and make him a Detective Inspector this time?  But instead of a promotion, McRae is headed a 'development opportunity'.  He is removed from the CID and put in charge of a rural Aberdeenshire police force.  Anything big or interesting is immediately taken over by the various police units.

Still, Logan gives it his best.  When not removing cattle from the road, he and his team are busy chasing drug dealers and ATM thieves.  Then the call police hate to get occurs.  A small girl is found dead, her head battered in.  Worse, she can't be identified.  The entire police force makes the case a top priority.  At the same time, child molesters are disappearing.  Are the cases related?  Add in the fact that moving towns hasn't made Inspector Steel disappear, that her wife Susan is pregnant again with Logan's child, and you have the ingredients for another McRae adventure.

This is the ninth Logan McRae police novel.  The reader cannot help but love Logan, who fights his way through the despair and horror of policing without losing his optimism and constant willingness to go forth into the fray.  The cases are always interesting, and MacBride does a magnificent job of tying everything together at the end.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.