Now, I’ll say right from the start that Quintin Jardine’s Bob Skinner books will not be to everyone’s taste! I like them because the author is a good story teller and the books are, for the most part, set in Edinburgh. Bob Skinner is a tough senior policeman and the author introduced him in 1993 in ‘Skinner’s Rules’ as a Detective Chief Superintendent who is Head of CID in Edinburgh and, although we are never told his age (as far as I recall), I reckon he is in his late thirties as we meet him for the first time. Since then, we have seen another thirty-two books published and the most recent one ‘Deadlock’ came out in November 2021. I have mentioned the ageing process for principal characters in series of books before and, although that is a period of some twenty-seven years, Bob Skinner seems only to have managed to reach his early fifties!
Despite that, he has been through a lot and we have seen him promoted to the highest position in the Scottish Police Service, knighted, leaving the force to take up a senior position in the security services and, most recently, becoming the Executive Chairman of an international media organisation. At the same time, he manages to operate as a consultant and mentor to his former colleagues on a quasi-official basis! Over the years, we have also seen his colleagues develop and move on in the force, out of the force and, sadly, some have passed away, often in pretty violent circumstances. We have also experienced the development in his domestic life with marriages, relationships and a number of children, with different women and through adoption. Altogether a complicated business!
As I said earlier, I don’t think the books are to everyone’s taste and Jardine has also written books with two other principal characters, Oz Blackstone and Primavera Blackstone. I’ve tried them both but have to say that they didn’t appeal to me in the way that Skinner does and I haven’t persisted with them.
The Skinner books are not heavy literature but they are exciting and quite good whodunnits although I would like to think that life in the Scottish police service is not quite as it is portrayed in these books! In summary, I would say they are worth a try, especially as the early ones will not be too costly to experiment with. I suspect that there is every likelihood that they will catch your attention whichever one you opt to pick up first but, as ever, despite the fact that each edition does tend to cater for the first-time reader, my recommendation is to read them in order, if you can.