I’m going to be totally honest here. While I enjoyed Caro Ramsay’s On an Outgoing Tide, I also felt completely lost at times. The book is the twelfth in an ongoing police procedural series set in Glasgow featuring Detective Inspector Colin Anderson, his partner Detective Sergeant Freddie Costello, and the rest of their team. There was just enough backstory to let me into the story, but there were so many continuing storylines that I felt lost. Why is Anderson’s grandson now his adopted son? Who was the actual parent? Why is Costello so angry at her parents? I felt a little more clued in to the story of the conman who tried to cheat Anderson’s wife, but, again, that was an ongoing storyline. Those storylines affected this book, along with the new cases the team investigated.

Anderson and Costello work on one case into the early hours of the morning. The body of a young woman, a medical student, is found in the Firth of Clyde. They have a suspect, a man seen accompanying her from a pub, but just as they’re starting to get their teeth into the case, they’re yanked off of it, and sent to Invernock where a brutal crime scene awaits them.

Scotland has just been released from twelve weeks of lockdown after the virus, and Dennis MacMellan is concerned about his neighbor. MacMellan had been doing the shopping for Jimmy Pearcey, a man in his eighties, and Jimmy wasn’t answering his door. When MacMellan and another neighbor got in, he finds Pearcey in his loft, a victim of torture. Anderson and Costello confiscate films, and start their investigation, but rumors are already sweeping through the neighborhood that Pearcey was a pedophile, and the police just never caught him.

Both of these cases, while murder investigations, also show the power of social media and gossip to destroy reputations and ruin lives before the facts are known. Because the team was yanked from the case of the young woman, that investigation becomes background, a tragedy in the works. But, the second case involving the elderly man links to a group of people from forty years earlier, another murder, a child’s death, and a disappearance. It’s an intriguing case.

While those active cases go on, Anderson and his wife are still dealing with the problems stirred up by the conman, and Costello is caught up in her own drama. She found an elderly neighbor bleeding, and followed procedure, but, now the neighbor’s daughter is accusing her of theft.

On an Outgoing Tide is the first book I’ve read that refers to COVID-19. It takes place immediately after people in Scotland are released from the first lockdown of twelve weeks. It mentions younger people looking out for older neighbors, and that situation triggers two of the storylines in this book.

Caro Ramsay was a nominee for the CWA New Blood Award for the first book in this series, Absolution. I’d really start at the beginning if this police procedural series interests you. After reading the summary of Absolution, I realized there was even a reference to this case in this twelfth book. It’s not easy to catch up with so much backstory in a new book.

The body of Aasta Ariti is discovered in the Firth of Clyde, a case headed by DCI Colin Anderson and DI Costello who believe they know who the murderer is. (Felt that this sub-plot was not really necessary).
But soon they are given another case, the murder of eighty-one year old Jimmy Pearcey in his home in Invernock. But old and new secrets surround the case. Can Anderson and his team reveal all.
(Unfortunately part of the story continues from the previous book in the series, which really makes it necessary to read the previous book)
Still couldn't take to the two main characters which does tend to affect my enjoyment of the story.
But overall an enjoyable crime story.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

The latest Caro Ramsay can be read as a standalone but if you’ve read all the previous novels, it makes this one even better. Her plots and characters are always so well developed and her unlike many authors, the denouements are not finalized suddenly but rather drawn out over pages. The author is a delight to read and should really be more established here in the States.

Gruesome Discoveries.....
Book twelve in the Anderson and Costello series of mysteries finds the duo with some gruesome discoveries, a live investigation and a cold case that needs to be unearthed. As is usual for his series, well written with likeable protagonists and a solid, fully engaging plot. A worthy addition.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Severn House Publishers for an advance copy of On an Outgoing Tide, the twelfth novel to feature Glasgow detectives DCI Anderson and DI Costello.

Anderson and his team are investigating the death of Aasha Ariti, pulled from the Clyde after a night out to celebrate the end of lockdown. They have a prime suspect and are getting ready to interview him when they are pulled from the case and asked to investigate the torture and murder of pensioner Jimmy Pearcey. It’s a strange one as he is a loner with no family so what would merit torture? A closer looks tells the team he is a man with many secrets and links to a murder in 1978.

I thoroughly enjoyed On an Outgoing Tide which is a complicated tale of secrets, lies and reprehensible behaviour, not complicated in the plot trajectory but rather in the relationships between the characters and, for me personally, in understanding their behaviour when all is revealed. I have been reading this series for years but I still find it difficult to keep up with Anderson and Costello’s lives. There are so many references to past events that colour their present, but at one book a year and so many others in between the required detail is sometimes elusive. That’s the moaning over.

I like the mixture of current events and nostalgia in this novel. On the one hand the lockdown and pandemic loom large with the world in the novel trying to get back to normal (obviously the novel is set in the summer of 2020 before the second wave) and it’s nice to see it acknowledged and on the other it harks back to the 50s and 60s when all of Glasgow flocked to “the dancing”. There’s a sense of something lost in both scenarios. The novel also takes aim at social media and its toxic habit of amplifying rumours and making false accusations. I think that the author uses this habit well in certain plot developments.

The novel is told mostly from Anderson and Costello’s points of view. I really like their characters and the familiarity of the Scottish setting as there’s nothing like a bit of home to settle the reader into the plot. I must admit that I guessed the perpetrator fairly early on as soon as Jimmy Pearcey’s history started to be revealed but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment in the slightest as I had no idea of motive and there’s so much more to the novel than the one murder of an old man. It twists and turns, luring the reader into a set of assumptions that become more amorphous as the novel progresses. It’s well done, clever and definitely moreish although it also requires a lot of attention to keep up with all the characters.

On an Outgoing Tide is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

This is the latest instalment in the Anderson and Costello series which is the first I have read. Undoubtedly it would have been better if I had read the earlier issues as it would have added to my enjoyment. However, I did enjoy the book and liked the characters, particularly Anderson (and the dogs – what a lovely man!).

This is the first novel that I have read which mentions Covid and lockdown and it was an odd realisation how quickly the unthinkable quickly becomes part of the norm; lockdown, masks, safe distances. Undoubtedly this resonates through the book in a subtle way but assists in making it all feel horrible current and real.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

I recommend reading the previous books before this instalment.
Another complex case (or is it two, or three?) for Anderson and Costello that at first glance is an act of revenge against a paedophile but quickly becomes a lesson in how first impressions aren't always right. There are lots of characters and even more names to keep track of and at times I struggled to keep who is who straight.
One aspect of the storyline really annoyed me though; poor Nesbit should never have been replaced so quickly, it's disrespectful!!!

Another great book in the Anderson, Costello series, one of the best around.
A young woman is found drowned, presumed murdered after a Covid post-lockdown party in a pub. Then, then the horribly mutilated body of an old man is found in his attic.
Anderson and Costello quickly realize that somehow the old man's murder is tied to a cold case.
I love Anderson, he's such a decent, moral man, with a challenging personal life. The love for his adopted son (actually his grandson) and his dog is heartwarming, as is his empathy for others. Costello, who had a very troubled childhood, is prickly and outspoken, smart as a whip and I like her a lot. The relationship between the two is tight, they work very well together and strengthen each other.
The story is super absorbing, I couldn't tear myself away and the ending mind blowing. What a great read! Highly recommended and could be read as a standalone, but I would read the series in order so as to have the full, truly great experience.
I'm only sad that I have to wait at least a year for the next one!
Thank you Netgalley and Seven House for the eARC.