The Lost Sister [Hardcover]

Hard-boiled Dundee PI McNee is called upon to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl. He's reluctant, since the girl is the god-daughter of David Burns - someone that McNee is not particularly fond of, and that's putting it lightly. McNee lets himself be beguiled by his dislike of Burns - as well as his desire to right some wrongs - as he investigates the secrets and lies that lead him to become more and more emotionally involved in the case. Brutal, chilling, pacy and dramatic, THE LOST SISTER is superb - but very sad. I felt melancholic from about half way through and burst into tears at the end. McNee is an excellent character - tough as nails on the outside, but much softer on the inside - something he does his best to hide. He is uncompromising about right and wrong, his moral compass is firmly set, and his prickly exterior hides a troubled and isolated person who just can't get close to people. You don't know whether to hug him or punch him. Russel McLean spins a fine and expertly told tale.

Recovered physically but not emotionally from an accident which cost the life of his fiancée, followed by a downward spiral which led to his breaking of a superior officer's nose, J McNee has wisely left the CID and has been working as a private investigator in his home town of Dundee, Scotland. Morose and cynical, he suffers from agonizing psychosomatic injuries which sometimes nearly paralyze him as a result of the violence of his past life. When he is asked to investigate a missing person by reporter Cameron Connolly, McNee takes the job, "off the books," working in parallel with the Dundee CID. The missing person is Mary Furst, a fourteen-year-old girl, who is also the god-daughter of David Burns, a thug who is "knuckle deep in drug money, extortion, rackets, underground deals, and blackmail." Detective Constable Ernie Bright, a man who had trained McNee at CID and who still hopes he will return to the force, is his contact there, though he will work most closely with Susan Bright, Ernie's daughter.

As he investigates the circumstances surrounding Mary's disappearance, McNee concentrates first on her home life, then her room, and finally her computer. He soon discovers the name of her boyfriend and an unusually large number of e-mails to and from Deborah Brown, her art teacher. Hints about a strange relationship between these two are rampant at their school. Eventually, McNee becomes embroiled in every aspect of Mary's family life, the relationship of her parents, her early childhood, her closeness to her crime lord/godfather, and her mother's emotional problems. An investigation of Deborah Brown also reveals that she, too, suffers from severe emotional issues. When McNee repeatedly fails to obey his better judgment that certain aspects of the case would be better investigated by the police, he sets up the circumstances that lead to a dark and bloody conclusion.

Written in a straightforward, almost hard-boiled style, McNee tells his own story in a first person narrative which is much more psychological in approach than most other noir novels. McNee has to deal with his own problems and then apply his insights to the problems of other characters in the novel. As one of his colleagues tells him, "You're a man with a conscience and a code and all that other bollocks, but you're also a man who drags his own disaster around with him like a wrecking ball." Coincidence plays a role here in the developing action, while the backgrounds of all the characters unfold through interviews, which are efficient in giving a great deal of pertinent information, though they create numerous situations in which the author/narrator is "telling about" things that have happened instead of revealing information through the action. Some information about Dundee itself provides a bit of local color and atmosphere, though the story does not depend on it for interest.

The action that does occur, though violent and unexpected, is consistent with the black-and-white issues that underlie the plot, and though the use of psychological angles provides some depth, the novel itself is straightforward and uncomplicated--clever and compressed, rather than elegant or subtle. The grand finale, which is easy to imagine as an action film, takes place at an atmosphere-filled location in the Scottish countryside, and should satisfy all readers of noir fiction. Mary Whipple

American style Private eye hits the meanish streets of Dundee. I enjoyed the book and found the plot interesting and the characters believable and quite amusing. It is nice to read about somewhere you think you know quite well ( although I never had been in that pub before Russel! ) Russel writes well and I like the twist of a Dundee Private Eye ( although I can't help feeling he will come to a sticky end at the hands of a redoubtable Dundee wifey one day).
I hope we hear more of McNee but I wonder what else you can come up with. I feel there is a lot more to come from this young writer.