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Absolution
Unavailable
Absolution
Unavailable
Absolution
Audiobook12 hours

Absolution

Written by Caro Ramsay

Narrated by James Macpherson

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

1984: It looked like a simple job. Guarding a woman - nameless and almost faceless after a savage acid attack - at a Glasgow hospital. PC Alan McAlpine has no idea that this simple job will haunt his career and change his life forever. 2006: Two decades later, Alan steps into Partickhill police station and back in time. Now a celebrated Detective Chief Inspector, McAlpine has been drafted in to lead the hunt for a man the press are calling 'the Crucifixion Killer'. With his distinguished reputation, McAlpine's team are confident their new DCI will lead them to the killer. But the obsession that was born in a hospital room twenty-two years earlier has never quite left Alan. And now, it seems, it's come back for a reason...
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 1, 2008
ISBN9781407416359
Unavailable
Absolution
Author

Caro Ramsay

CARO RAMSAY is the Glaswegian author of the critically acclaimed Anderson and Costello series, the first of which, Absolution, was shortlisted for the CWA's New Blood Dagger for best debut of the year. The ninth book in the series, The Suffering of Strangers, was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize 2018. @CaroRamsayBooks | caroramsay.com CARO RAMSAY is the Glaswegian author of the critically acclaimed DI Anderson and DS Costello series, the first of which, Absolution, was shortlisted for the CWA's New Blood Dagger for best debut of the year. The ninth book in the series, The Suffering of Strangers, was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize 2018.

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Reviews for Absolution

Rating: 3.4765624765625 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

64 ratings8 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ABSOLUTION is the first book from this Scottish author, with the second - Tambourine to be released 2008. There's obviously something in the water in Scotland - or maybe it's all that time stuck indoors in the long cold winters, but the number of assured, confident books coming out of that place is getting to the startling stage. ABSOLUTION is definitely assured, with a story-telling style that is absolutely enthralling.The main component of the book is the hunt for the serial killer - the 'Crucifixion Killer'. To be honest it's a pretty standard serial killer plot, with a perpetrator that's not difficult to spot, but the point of the book seems less to do with the crime and a whole lot more to do with the impact of crime on the investigators. McAlpine is a truly tortured soul. In the 1984 incident, he was already a fragile man, emotionally drained by events in his own family, and with hindsight, what seemed like an easy job - guarding a dreadfully injured, unknown young woman backfired badly. He becomes so involved in who she is and what happened to her that he is never able to forget, never really recovers.In the 2006 investigation, his personal fragility is starting to get on top of him - badly. As his team continue the investigation, and try, out of friendship for him and genuine feeling for his wife; to continue the investigation, to compensate for McAlpine; to understand - he falls apart in front of them. His behaviour becomes more and more erratic, his distress less and less controlled.And it's impact of crime that becomes the main point of ABSOLUTION. The serial killer has victims - those victims have friends and families and associates. And victims aren't necessarily good, or nice, or as ideal as people perhaps think. And investigators can sometimes become victims as well. Whether that's psychological or physical, well we've all seen what happens when investigators put themselves into jeopardy. Only in ABSOLUTION the jeopardy is not what you think, and whilst it might not be hard to work out where the past has leaked into the present, it sometimes ends in ways that you may not expect.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fantastic read, can't wait to read the next titles in the series!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    PC Alan McAlpine returns to work after a family tragedy and is rostered to hospital duty to wait for the awakening of a young woman who lies near death after being the victim of a horrific acid attack. McAlpine is soon obsessed by the woman and even after discovering what led to her predicament he continues to fantasize about her. Fast Forward 20 years and McAlpine is a Detective Inspector who investigating a series of brutal killings

    The opening passages of this book are some of the most moving I have read, in any kind of genre, and perfectly sparked my interest in both the story to come and getting to know McAlpine. Ramsay’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and evocative of the time and place. She builds the suspense well and the ending fits logically with the events that went before it which is not always the case with crime fiction these days. There is one thread that I found awkward and unnecessary from a plot development point of view (the car crash) but I can easily forgive this in a book with so much else to recommend it.

    The book has a swag of well-developed and interesting characters which is just as well because I grew to despise Alan McAlpine. I suspect readers are supposed to feel sympathetic towards him but I just found him totally self-absorbed and hated the way he treats his wife and friends with utter contempt much of the time. Which presented me with my only real gripe about this book because I could just about swallow that either his wife or one of his colleagues would be blind to McAlpine’s faults but found it too much of a stretch to accept that they would universally put up with his poor treatment of them, cover for his drunken mistakes and generally ignore the fact he’s a selfish ingrate. Happily for him (and the good citizens of Glasgow) the dogged and devoted Colin Anderson and smart, courageous Winifred Costello are available fo the actual police work. Likeable or not though, all the characters are well constructed and nicely multi-dimensional.

    I’ll definitely keep my eyes out for any new books by this author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this last before the third and second in the series, which was unfortunate. In this story the characters haven’t fully developed in the way they have in books 2 and 3 and I found the character of DCI Alan McAlpine a little unlikely to generate the loyalty often referred to in books 2 and 3. That aside it is still a cracking read and worth it for the back story to the even better books 2 and 3.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Started well. I felt I was really getting inside the characters. Then it went on and on and on - tracking the killer became secondary to the private lives of the characters. I did something with this book that I very rarely do - abandoned it at page 172 - terminal boredom was creeping in!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I like to give a new novelist a chance. Started well. A young man's obsession with the woman's left in his care. I just felt she over-extended herself and tried to fit too much in. I had to keep pushing myself to finish the book - there was no real urgency in chasing down the serial killer. Not something I'm passing on to anyone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    ABSOLUTION has two threads. One is the investigation of the murders and the other is following the gradual disintegration of McAlpine's life as the ghosts of his past begin to overwhelm him.If there is one criticism, it is that the book seemed to lose just a little momentum towards the end. Then again that just could be me and life getting in the way of reading.I don't know what it is about Scotland that produces so many fine crime writers: Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Alexander McCall Smith, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina. The list goes on and on. Add Caro Ramsay to that list. ABSOLUTION is a fine debut novel. I look forward to more.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good book. The main character is a police detective who has never let go of a case of a beautiful woman who had acid thrown on her. She killed herself to save her daughter. 20 years later a killer is on the loose and there are connections to the old case. Although I figured out who was the killer, the ending was not what I expected.