Book 1 - Ghost in the Machine - DC Scott Cullen Crime Series

Fast paced book about a Scottish police department and the solving of murders. The characters are fully described and almost feel real. The mystery is solved by examining modern technology, as well as human nature.

I enjoyed this book and read it fairly quickly. It was a fair storyline and rattled along at a reasonable pace, though it lacked any real depth and took some (in my view) fairly unnecessary liberties with reality, specifically with the geography of Edinburgh, the calendar for 2011 and the shelf-life of wine. These liberties just took it a step away from the reality that helps make things believable, but didn't go so far as to ruin my enjoyment.

Cullen is a sympathetic lead, with his own character flaws and professional fallibility, though other characters lack depth. I found Bain quite frustrating, bordering on incompetent, and there weren't too many people you felt you could rely on to do a decent job.

I'd give it three and a half stars. It's not the top of the tree, and there are just too many flaws to make it a clear four-star read. But I enjoyed it, and will definitely read more by this author and hopefully see Cullen develop and progress, and see some of the other characters become more rounded.

But as it comes at a very generous price - or even free - I should be equally generous with my marking, so I'll round my three and a half up to four stars.

I started reading this book in earnest last night after resolving to read more and I could quite honestly not put it down. I loved the realness of the characters and the work they do. I felt like I was right there with DC Cullen during the tedious parts and the exciting parts. Loved it

I loved this ebook. The engaging characters throughout were very realistic, especially the main character Scott Cullen - his character was written really well. I loved the Scottish setting as I have been to Edinburgh recently and the writer made it come alive with the use of great imagery. I'd highly recommend this book, in fact I liked it so much that the day I finished reading it, I bought the second Scott Cullen Mystery book (Devil In The Detail) so I could continue reading about Cullen and his everyday life as a Scottish DC.

I very much enjoyed reading this police procedural. It seems that crime-fighting is done in about the same way in all countries. Scott Cullen is a 30ish detective who must interact with other members of the police hierarchy to justify a recent promotion. Other characters in the story are well developed and pull the reader in to their scrapes and triumphs. I had a lot of fun figuring out for myself what some of the Scottish colloquialisms meant that are peppered throughout the story. I was also surprised that some things have the same names in both countries (USA and Scotland). This book is filled with crime fighting technological advances, and it is great to see them used to catch bad guys.

I enjoyed the book and found myself so occupied with the story that I read it in only a few hours.
It was fun reading about the locations and I particularly enjoyed the Scottish vernacular.
The story was well written and took an unexpected twist at the conclusion. Well done. I look forward to more like this from Ed James as we follow DC Cullen on new cases.
Thank you Mr. James. I liked your book.

Well worth reading. Good plot, well-drawn characters, nice pacing and (I shouldn't even have to bring this up) no typos or bad grammar. Liked it enough to come post a review, brief as it is, and add the next installment to my Wishlist. I'll be checking with my library to see whether/suggest that they carry Ed James' books.

this book is part of the Scottish crime genre dragged up to date, lots of social media behind the scenes references, and overall the book feels a little like son of rebus meets christopher brookmyre, in a good way. some larger than life characters, especially Bain, and a plot that keeps you interested until the end. This isn't the book you get third of the way through and then never restart, it has a solid hook. Recommended, and a very promising first piece of work by the author.

Recently introduced to this Edinburgh crime writer, I read this first book over two days. With great character descriptions and dialogue as well as geographic references, as an expat I was there as Scott Cullen and colleagues were driving around Edinburgh and the suburbs. And like many others the main villain wasn't obvious to me until close to the end.

Looking forward to the next in the series.