Skinner's Festival - Hardcover

Jardine, Quintin

3.91

700 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312118929 ISBN 13: 9780312118921

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1995

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In August each year Edinburgh is filled with thousands of tourists, performers, and enthusiastic spectators who flood into the ancient city for its Festival of the Arts - a display of culture ranging from the highly professional to the rank amateur.
But this year, on the very first day, an explosion rocks a hospitality center at Princes Street, and one man is killed. Assistant Chief Constable Robert Skinner, head of Edinburgh CID, soon establishes that it was no accident.
A few hours later a threatening letter is delivered to the Secretary of State from a group calling itself Fighters for an Independent Scotland, which demands the end of parliamentary union England.
Skinner quickly assembles a team and maintains a news blackout on the terrorists' threat to avoid widespread panic. Every Festival event must now be rigorously checked for security - but the following afternoon an American opera singer becomes the second victim.
As atrocities escalate, Skinner realizes this is no gang of bloodthirsty fanatics, but an international team with access to the most sophisticated armaments and technology. Even though every known agitator in Scotland has been rounded up for questioning, the mayhem continues. And the imminent visit of the Prime Minister provides the police with a nightmare scenario...
But behind this terror campaign lies a hidden agenda, and with the ancient honor of Scotland at stake, Skinner is under pressure to solve the riddle soon.

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About the Author:

Quintin Jardine was born once upon a time in the West - of Scotland rather than America, but still he grew to manhood as a massive Sergio Leone fan. On the way there he was educated, against his will, in Glasgow, where he ditched a token attempt to study law for more interesting careers in journalism, government propaganda, and political spin-doctoring. After a close call with the Brighton Bomb in 1984, he moved into the even riskier world of media relations consultancy, before realising that all along he had been training to become a crime writer. Now, forty novels later, he never looks back. Along the way he has created/acquired an extended family in Scotland and Spain. Everything he does is for them. He can be tracked down through his blog: http://quintinjardine.me

From Booklist:

Don't let Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner's affable exterior fool you. Underneath the surface, Skinner, who's head of Edinburgh's Criminal Investigation Department, is tough, uncompromising, and superb at his job, all of which was evident in his first case, Skinner's Rules. In this sequel, a bomb explodes at Edinburgh's nationally acclaimed International Arts Festival, and Skinner is first on the scene. A note delivered to Scotland's Secretary of State soon after the disaster indicates that the bomb is the work of an international terrorist group with a political agenda. Skinner uses every man under his command to initiate a search for the bombers, but he soon finds that the case is about much more than political terrorism. In fact, the treasures most precious to Scotland and to Skinner himself are the real targets. Tension mounts as more bombs explode, the body count increases, and Skinner's own wife and daughter are taken hostage by the terrorists. Scotsman Jardine writes a nearly flawless police procedural--intense, riveting, and relentlessly suspenseful--but his real forte is the way he gets into the minds and hearts of his characters. A writer and a series to watch! Emily Melton

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