The Coffinmaker’s Garden is the third in the Ash Henderson series but also features the ‘Misfit Mob’, the team of delinquent detectives who featured in the standalone A Dark So Deadly. It is set in the fictional Oldcastle.

Former detective Ash remains traumatised by the death of his daughter, and is working in a civilian role for Police Scotland in a special unit, alongside his friend and housemate Dr Alice McDonald, a clinical psychologist, whose at times childish loquaciousness belies her brilliance. Their team is in pursuit of one serial killer, who is taking and abusing children, when a house on a windswept coast is washed into the North Sea, revealing an underground killing chamber in the basement.

Alice continues to profile the child killer while Ash is drafted into to work on the second case, alongside DS Franklin of the Misfit Mob. They want to track down the owner of the abandoned house, set designer Gordon Smith, and identify the victims, with not much more to go on than Polaroid photos taken by the killer.

Throw into the mix a ruthless tabloid journalist and a neighbour of Gordon Smith who also has a colourful criminal history, and you have an eventful road trip for Ash and Franklin. As events escalate, Ash strikes out on his own, and then with his best friend DI Morrow, aka Shifty, to mete out his own particular brand of justice.

The strength of MacBride’s books for me has always been the way they combine violent and disturbing storylines with humour. The Logan McRae novels are police procedurals, and follow the logic of an investigation, but the characters are all heightened, funny, odd, with their own idiosyncratic motives, from lust for power, to vanity, to laziness.

Logan McRae is the everyman, a decent guy trying to do good in a world that is both cruel and absurd. When he does break the rules, it’s for the greater good. Ash Henderson is a very different character, a vigilante fuelled by a need for revenge, constrained only by what he can get away with. While the humour is there, the overall feel is bleaker.

MacBride’s books often have a huge cast of characters, and it hasn’t bothered me before, but I did struggle a bit here, even though I’ve read the previous books. In my review of A Dark So Deadly I did express the wish that the Misfit Mob would be back, but though they are here, aside from Franklin, they are in the background, so you don’t get so much of their tragic flaws and comic exchanges.

The Coffinmaker’s Garden does, however, have all the MacBride trademarks — the pace, the energy, the visceral violence, along with a fantastic sense of place. And the ending opens up great possibilities for another outing for Ash and his friends.
*
I received a copy of The Coffinmaker’s Garden from the publisher via Netgalley.

Ash Henderson is investigaing a child killer when he finds himself involved in another case. This is another serial killer and a prolific one. They know he is but not where he is or where his neighbours granddaughter is either. Has he taken her or did sh run away. It down to Ash to find out but can he work it out in time and not lose his own life in the process.

Well that was a dark read. This is quite gory and detailed but a really good read. The plot is clever and features two different mysteries both of which are solved during the story. The ending fitted the story well and tied things off perfectly but left it ready for another story, This is book 3 of the series and I think reading books 1 and 2 might help better explain the relationships and Ash more. Will have to look for them. Ash is an interesting lead but I liked him and want to lern more about him. A brilliant dark crime, thriller.

The Coffinmaker’s Garden opens in the fictional Scottish coastal village of Clachmara, in the middle of a storm that sees part of the coastline, and some abandoned houses, crumble into the sea. A neighbour from the village notices what appear to be human bones sticking out of the remains of a garden, and it quickly becomes apparent that an ex-inhabitant, Gordon Smith, has been operating as a serial killer for a lot of years, with his current whereabouts unknown.

This was the first Stuart MacBride book I’d read, and is the third in a series featuring Ash Henderson, an ex-DI who now works with the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit, a civilian organisation working alongside the police. Although this book can be read as a standalone, I must admit that one of the first things I did was search for information on the previous ones, as it was obvious that Ash came with a lot of ‘baggage’, in the form of both physical and psychological scars. I wasn’t initially sure I was going to take to him, with his apparent propensity for thumping anyone who gets in his way. If you haven’t read the previous novels either, it soon becomes apparent in the pages of this one that Ash has had a lot of personal trauma involving a serial killer in a previous story.

Although Ash is supposed to be working with his sidekick, Dr Alice McDonald, on a different case involving the murders of young boys, Ash finds himself taken off the case and sent to work with the Misfit Mob, a collection of police officers with chequered track records, on the Gordon Smith case. This means that there are two serial killer investigations running throughout The Coffinmaker’s Garden. Ash and Alice share a flat, and along with Henry the Scotty dog they make the sort of close-knit team that’s almost a family, so both investigations are kept in the spotlight and there’s always a lot going on.

Between the Misfit Mob and the LIRU, the novel has a large cast of characters, and thankfully characterisation is one of the real strengths here. There’s a lot of humour of the darker variety, and characters who trust each other to the point that they can be brutally honest and even scathing and still get the job done. Ash’s softer side is shown mainly through his nurturing of his colleagues, most notably Alice, who has a few issues of her own.

At points, The Coffinmaker’s Garden ventured into gangland territory, and there were some scenes that felt like I was watching an action movie rather than reading a crime novel; there’s even a little swipe at more traditional police procedural novels when Ash interrupts an island book group. I did have to suspend my disbelief once or twice in order to ever trust the police again, but this was a fast and enjoyable read with a memorable cast of characters, and I suspect it won’t be the last Stuart MacBride novel I read.

The Ash Henderson series is not for the faint hearted. Our protagonists carry battle scars, not all of them visible, though many are. But years of dealing with the scum of society has taken its toll. Loved ones have been lost; scars have covered over but left their mark on the brain as well as the body. Battle weary cops subjected to brutality over and over have found their own ways of coping. The Oldcastle mob are a bunch of misfits – more akin to the Slough House rejects of Mick Herron’s books than the modern outfit that is Police Scotland.

Former DI Ash Henderson and his partner Dr Alice McDonald of the Lateral Investigative Review Unit find themselves in the midst of two distinct cases. Ash and Alice are working on the abduction and murder of a number of young boys from around the Oldcastle area, which is half way between Aberdeen and Dundee, most recently in the quiet sea front village of Clachmara.

As a helicopter flies over the village seeking to rescue the crew of a fishing boat in difficulty, part of the headland gives way and the helicopter’s spotlight reveals a devastating sight as the coastal erosion which has exacerbated in recent years, claims another cliff top dwelling.

The sight was one of human bones, bones that clearly belonged to more than one person. It doesn’t take long before Ash and Alice are clear that this house, now cleaved in two, one half already in the sea, was the scene of several tortures and subsequent murders.

DI Malcolmson, ‘Mother’, and her team are investigating and as Ash and Alice discover a collection of ‘before and after’ Polaroids in the basement the rest crumbles into the sea. The only thing they have left to work with are the photographs of the victims.

Gordon Smith, owner of the house is nowhere to be seen and Leah, the daughter of Smith’s next door neighbour, Helen McNeill is also missing.

MacBride knows how to write a dark, gritty and disturbing book full of violence and dark intent. His characters jump out of the page and it is all too easy to feel their pain and anguish. MacBride brilliantly tempers this with acerbic dialogue that fizzes, biting wit and black, black humour that make the pages sing, even when they are dealing with the bleakest of subject matter.

Beautifully plotted and with spell-binding tension, MacBride never lets you forget for a second that murder is a dark and violent obsession that never ends well. Brilliantly paced with cracking wit and laugh out loud moments of genius, there are even little nuggets of gold left for the assiduous crime reader to spot, whether references to Bute Noir and a hilarious visit to the Crime Fiction Bookclub, or to a renowned former Scottish Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology.

But loss is always on the cards in these books and this time that danger is front and centre as Ash takes on his deadliest case yet. Even poor Henry is at risk!

Verdict: Intense, dramatic, thrilling and sparking with the kind of antagonistic, pugilistic characters and black humour that MacBride excels in. I loved it!

As usual in my reviews I won't rehash the plot (plenty of reviews like that out there already if that's what you're looking for).

The book opens with an immediate air of tension - imagined and physical peril - and I was drawn in. The characters (some of whom evidently feature in previous novels in this series - which I haven't read) are well described, and clearly have history, along with their own flaws and foibles (some of which are almost cliches).

The writing is good, but it the whole novel had a pervasive air of gloom about it - the weather was dreadful, most of the characters are haunted by horrible things in their past (or present), and even the large doses of humour couldn't dispel the mood.

The main "baddie" is as bad as they come. There is some violence - mercifully most of the worst is left to our imaginations - so it's not for those of a nervous disposition.

This is the first book I've read in this series - I've enjoyed others in this author's other series - so may give Ash Henderson's character the benefit of the doubt and read another.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author but I’m keen to read more. I hadn’t realised it was part of a series and while I couldn’t appreciate the background events that some of the characters had experienced, nor the relationships between some of them, I don’t think it affected my enjoyment of this book.
Coastal erosion has led to properties slipping into the sea one by one and accidentally exposed a macabre underground basement which held evidence of numerous murders over a period of many years.
Ash Henderson (a retired police officer) and his side-kick Alice set out to discover the identities of the victims and to help apprehend the murderer. At the same time they are also assisting the investigation into a child abductor/killer.
The storyline included lots of drama and suspense involving both cases but I admit to holding my breath a couple of times when Henry was missing and was so relieved when he turned up safe and well.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book but now feel the need to go back and read the series from the beginning to enable me to better understand the characters.

With thanks to Harper Collins UK, Netgalley, Pigeonhole and Stuart MacBride for the chance to read this arc.

I've not read anything by Stuart MacBride before but heard very good things so I was excited to read this.

The book is set on the coastland of Scotland. A house falls into the sea leaving behind the gruesome contents of its garden which leads to a hunt for a serial killer. As a secondary story young boys are being taken and murdered.

Ash and Alice are called in to work on the investigations but can they find the perpetrators before anyone else is killed?

I really enjoyed the first half of this book with the investigation and banter between the characters. I enjoyed the humour although sometimes quite dark and was interested to find out the back stories having not read any of the earlier books in the series.

There is however a definite change in the book which made it feel like two different books. The Ash of the first half is not the same character as the Ash in the second. I did not enjoy the second half at all. Too many bent coppers and breaking of rules. It just didn't sit well with me. The actual story I think was weak and too full of torture and gruesome descriptions for me. On the whole I feel a bit disappointed.

The Coffinmaker's Garden is the third instalment in the Ash Henderson series, set in the small city of Oldcastle, Scotland. Former Detective Inspector Henderson is now working as part of the Lateral Investigative Review Unit (LIRU) alongside forensic psychologist and serious-drinker Doctor Alice MacDonald. It's a wild and windy night in the quaint village of Clachmara as Storm Trevor blows in from Scandinavia battering the local area with a promise of more to come. The news on the radio states that the coastguard is taking part in an ongoing operation to rescue the crew of the Ocean-Gold Harvester, a boat that has run around against the cliffs. Inside listening in the warmth of the cottage she'd rented is single mother Margaret Compton and son Alfie. While she has her back turned to prep food Alfie had spotted a helicopter hovering above the cliff at the end of the garden and had dangerously rushed out.

She finds him standing at the point where the cliff is crumbling into the sea. Soon human remains are discovered buried in the garden and the police swiftly realise owner Gordon Smith is kidnapping and murdering young boys. This is a riveting, compulsive and rollicking good read from the second you open the book, and MacBride being a prominent purveyor of tartan noir shows exactly why that's the case with his trademark elements all bouncing of one another creating a potent, unmistakeable and scintillating mix of high body count, brutal violence, banter, twists in the tale and last but no means least, detailed characterisation. The black humour helps break up the horrific nature of the crimes and gives an insightful look into cheeky, sardonic Scottish humour. An unmissable addition to MacBride's canon and a must-read for all who class themselves as crime connoisseurs. Highly recommended.

Action packed thriller! A serial killer’s secret inadvertently uncovered when a landslide takes part of a garden into the sea and our intrepid ex inspector risks his life to find out more. This is pacy, scary and chilling and contemplating the subject is harrowing. Not for those of a nervous disposition and there is one sad loss in the story (my opinion). Despite all that, there are some amusing one liners and even the two ‘go to thugs’ willing to break legs with no ill feeling made me smile. The ‘Croup & Vandemar’ of the plot.
This is an excellent book and I’ve just got to read the rest in the series now.

I have to admit to having made a huge error in choosing this book as I haven't read the previous books in the series which put me on the back foot big time. I struggled to understand how the characters interlinked and had no knowledge of previous events which had a huge bearing on the story. I understand that this was entirely my error and as such I apologise to the publisher for offering to review this book without having done sufficient background research.
Having said that, I did enjoy the story of The Coffinmakers Garden. There are several story threads which give plenty of depth to the plotting and character building talent of the author. There are plenty of situations where you really don't know who's going to make it out of the book alive - and whether the law or the vigilante are going to reach the target first,
I love the touches of humour throughout this book. The characters are so well-written with gritty Scottish phraseology used to make the people very genuine and credible. I definitely want to re-visit this series from the start so I can enjoy it in its entirety and get the most out of this excellent author's writing.
Thank you again for the opportunity to read this book, and I am sorry I wasn't the best person to review it - my rating reflects the struggle I had with the lack of background, not the quality of writing.

Ex DI Ash Henderson and his sidekick Alice work for LIRU who help the police. They are called to Clachmara where human bones have been discovered after a landslide exposes them. Alongside this investigation they are also involved into the disappearance of three boys.
I did enjoy this up to near the end but for me I found the violence sickening. Ash seemed to have his own agenda and went off the rails. Alice also had her own demons.
I did like the humour as it tempered the gruesome descriptions of what Ash finds in the house.
Stuart's writing is very descriptive and atmospheric.
This is the third in the series and although I haven't read the previous two it can be read as a stand alone.
Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC

If you like Scottish Noir, packed with grisly scenes and a lot of violence, this one is for you. A cliff is subsiding into the seas, revealing human bones buried in the garden of the house where Gordon Sinclair lived. Ash Henderson - retired as a DI because of injuries sustained in the line of duty- finds evidence in the cellar of the collapsing house that Gordon has been murdering people for over 50 years. The hunt is on for Gordon as Ash and his alcoholic profiler associate are simultaneously looking for a child killer. You won't put it down.

This is my first book by this author and had I known that it was the third in a ‘continuous’ series I’d probably have read the others first.

Whilst I genuinely enjoyed it, I did feel a bit like the ‘new girl’ in town where everyone knows everyone and is just getting on with life. It took me a really long time to fathom out the characters, their hierarchy and relationship to each other.

As I mentioned above, this is the third in the series. Unlike some series where they are series based on characters or a police investigative team - this one is a series based on a lead case.

As far as investigating goes, I was a little disappointed that the book wasn’t more focused on the title of the book. It felt town between The Coffinmaker and the series’ lead case. If you’re looking for a fruity police procedural then this book isn’t for you.

For me, I felt McBride excels at dialogue and character building. This book kept me reading purely because I was more interested in the characters than the actual story which at points felt like it really got left on the back burner in preference for sausage butties and car trips.

I’d definitely read more from this author as even though I didn’t engage with the plot as much as I’d have liked. Thanks to NetGalley for my advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

A wild storm is lashed the Scottish coast and Ash Henderson is called out to Clachmara to a supposedly abandoned house. Upon investigating he finds a kill room full of photographs which is promptly lost as the cliff crashes into the sea. Ash is charged with investigating this potential serial killer and well as helping an investigation into a child murderer in Oldcastle.
Bliss, a new Stuart MacBride! Here MacBride revisits Ash Henderson, no longer a policemen, just a consultant, but still willing to get into the fray. With a cast of characters that are just on the plausible side of cliche this novel bounces along at great pace. There are sly digs at various careers paths, some fairly horrific violence and a delightful dog called Henry. What a wonderful start to the New Year.

The Coffinmaker's Garden by Stuart MacBride is a book that I would describe as gritty crime.  There's things being done in an underhanded way, descriptions of things that are a lot more gruesome, and it's all a lot more grey compared to cosy crime.

A house is falling into the North Sea, and when the garden reveals human remains,  that means this is a house that the police need to see.  Ex-Detective Inspector Ash Henderson is brought in on the case,  which has the media eager for more information, and everyone wants answers.

This is the third book in the Ash Henderson series, and you can tell that.  There was enough to know that you were missing past events.  I think reading the books in order would make more sense.

 The Coffinmaker's Garden  by Stuart MacBride was published on 7th January 2021 and is available on  Amazon ,  Waterstones  and  Bookshop.org .

You can follow Stuart MacBride on  Twitter ,  Facebook , and his  website .

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  HarperCollins .

This is my first Stuart MacBride book (despite having a few on my Kindle already!) and I'm wondering why I haven't read them sooner!

This is a gritty but witty crime crusade throughout Scotland. Starting with a landslide which exposes human remains, Ash Henderson, and his work partner Alice, get deeply involved in investigating the crime, while simultaneously investigating the murder/disappearance of local children.
It is not for the faint hearted but the action/violence is offset nicely with some fantastic black humour.

The characterisation is fantastic, Ash is a former Detective Inspector who now works for a private organisation which helps the police. He is flawed and has so much psychological baggage, but he is not the only one as Alice also has her issues. The relationship between the two is so ingriguing that I am going to go back and read the previous two books in the series. There are a whole host of other colourful characters and the dialogue is rich and authentic. I am a new fan of Stuart MacBride and thanks to Harper Collins and Netgalley for this eARC.

My thanks to HarperCollins U.K. HarperFiction for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Coffinmaker’s Garden’ by Stuart MacBride in exchange for an honest review.

I also took part in The Pigeonhole advance group read. We were joined by the author and had the opportunity to ask him questions as well as to share our thoughts on the novel.

This is Book 3 in MacBride’s Ash Henderson series of police procedurals set in Scotland. Henderson has a complicated backstory: he had been a Detective Inspector, but was demoted to Detective Constable before the events of Book 1. He is now a civilian consultant. He explains his current situation thus: “I work for the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit: think the A-Team meets New Tricks, only with civilian experts bailing the local cops out when they cock stuff up. Like this.”

The novel opens with a massive storm battering the Scottish coast. The headland is crumbling and as the garden of one property falls into the North Sea, a grizzly sight is revealed: a number of buried human remains. With the storm continuing to rage, it’s impossible to retrieve the bodies and it is even dangerous for the police to enter the empty property.

Yet ex-D.I. Ash Henderson and his colleague, Dr. Alice McDonald, do go in after D.I. (‘Mother’) Malcolmson decides that it’s the only chance that they will have to get evidence in order to prosecute the owner. Inside, they make a series of discoveries that indicate that horrific crimes have been taking place over a number of years. The owner has to be located and their victims also identified.

Added to this case, there is also an investigation into a number of abductions and murders of young boys in the area. Both were complex cases and I felt that MacBride did well in developing each case along with a few subplots. There was plenty of edge-of-the-seat thrills.

This was my first experience of reading Stuart MacBride’s novels and I was very impressed. It is a very dark narrative that contains graphic descriptions and strong violence. However, these aspects were balanced with lighter moments and great dialogue that included witty banter and satirical bits. Then there was Henry, Alice’s wee Scottie dog, which shamelessly stole every scene that he was in.

I enjoyed this novel very much, finding it a strong example of gritty Tartan Noir. Still, while some background was provided I feel that I would have preferred to read the series in order so that I could have a better sense of the dynamics between Ash, Alice, Mother, and other continuing characters as well as more information about how Ash came to ruin his career and marriage.

I have now bought the earlier novels and look forward to reading them soon as well as keeping a look out for future titles in this excellent series.

This is the third book in the Ash Henderson series. Henderson is now an ex DI working in the Lateral Investigative Review Unit with his sidekick, forensic psychologist Alice McDonald. Although this is the third book in the series it can be read as a standalone.

This is a very dark, violent and compelling story, so if you like your police procedures cosy then this definitely isn't for you. Yes it is a bit far fetched but if you can just let that go then you are in for a helter-skelter of a read.

4 stars

Brilliant, dark and absorbing!
This story wrapped me into the dark world of a hunting for a serial killer alongside the equally desperate hunt to stop a child killer.

Having not read the two previous books, it took awhile to get to grips with the Ash / Alice dynamics and the multitude of colourful characters and their place within the relationships. However all the characters were fully developed and came to life clearly.

The imagery of Clachmara was described effectively and I gained scarily realistic images of the dilapidated, derelict and ominous housing crumbling fiercely into the sea.

Stuart MacBride is a new author to me, but I will be back to read the two earlier books (just purchased)! He skilfully wound the two entirely separate plots and associated characters together in an action-packed, sometimes very gruesome, but always gripping, thriller. I really cared about the characters and their outcomes (particularly Henry) and struggled to read fast enough! Definitely a recommended read if you like dark stories!

Another cracking read from Stuart MacBride. Ash Henderson is at the forefront of this gritty tale of murder, torture and unbelievably depraved criminal acts. A young child is rescued from an eroding cliff in the nick of time amid a fierce storm. As a huge chunk of land collapses into the sea, a graveyard of human bones is revealed. Who do they belong to? An in depth investigation begins but the police resources are stretched due to the terrible case of young boys being kidnapped and murdered. Ash and his sidekick Alice are in deep and as they get close to the truth their own lives are in terrible danger. Fast paced and instilled with fear and despair but with a good dose of Scottish black humour that can only be produced by those people who see the worst in human nature and somehow have to survive the worst of days. I quickly devoured this well written book and look forward to many more from this talented author.