The second installment in Christopher Brookmyreโs new crime series, When the Devil Drives is an intensely gripping literary thriller that delves into the darkest reaches of the human psyche.
Actress turned private investigator Jasmine Sharp has become accustomed to clients looking for long-lost relatives, so when a woman hires her to find her younger sister Tessa Garrion, Jasmine presumes the case will be relatively straightforward. The assignment takes her back into the world of professional theater, where she is warned off more than once for probing too deeply into the past.
Meanwhile, Detective Superintendent and mother-of-two Catherine McLeod is called to the scene of a murder in the Highlands. Following a theatrical outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Cragruthes Castle, a prominent figure in the Scottish arts community is shot dead during a post-performance photo call. With her initial leads turning out to be red herrings, McLeod struggles to determine the killerโs motive.
Jasmine soon uncovers Tessaโs involvement in a drug-riddled Highlands estate retreat replete with occult rituals, which implicates more than a few people in the upper echelons of Scotlandโs arts scene. Tessaโs disappearance in the summer of 1981 begins to look increasingly like murder, but the guilty will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. As Jasmineโs and McLeodโs investigations intertwine, it becomes evident that both cases are far more convoluted and dangerous than anticipated.
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Is the devil merely the name we give the worst in ourselves?
When private investigator Jasmine Sharp is hired to find Tessa Garrion, a young woman who has vanished without trace, it becomes increasingly clear that there are those who want her to stay that way. What begins as a simple search awakens a malevolence that has lain dormant for three decades, putting Jasmine in the crosshairs of those who would stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.
Uncovering a hidden history of sex, drugs, ritualism and murder, Jasmine realises she may need a little help from dark places herself if sheโs going to get to the truth.
But then needs mustโฆ