PRAISE for Blood CityThe city's dark underbelly complete with knives, razors, guns and gangs... DAILY MAILYou follow the plot like an eager dog, nose turning this way and that, not catching every single clue but quivering as you lunge towards a blood-splattered denouement.

Alistair Findlay's compilation of poems about social work shows the reader that the world they are living in is often shaped by poverty. With sad, sometimes absurd, insights, his poems are for everyone who wants to know what goes on behind closed doors.

Mystery surrounds the murder of Sir Lachlan MacLean, an impoverished Highland laird with many enemies. Lawyer John MacKenzie and scribe Davie Scougall turn investigator to try to track down the murderer.

Killick steers clear of any sort of medical terminology and instead nurtures the often neglected aspects of dementia, thereby reinforcing to the reader that these are of no lesser importance.