The Way Of All Flesh

Ambrose Parry, Canongate Books, £14.99

This menacing, cleverly plotted tale set in 1840s Edinburgh has been given the stamp of approval by celebrated authors Ian Rankin, Irvine Welsh, and Stuart Macbride.

And it heralds the dawn of a new collaboration between Christopher Brookmyre and his wife Dr Marisa Heatzman, an anaesthetist whose research into the history of medicine inspired the novel.

OUR VERDICT 8/10