In Place of Death
Narey & Winter • Book 5
by Craig Robertson
Why You'll Love This
A murder discovered in a sealed tunnel beneath Glasgow — where no one should have been able to go, let alone die.
- Great if you want: a crime thriller rooted in Glasgow's hidden, atmospheric underbelly
- The experience: claustrophobic and tense, with multiple storylines tightening together
- The writing: Robertson layers dual investigations with confident, unsentimental prose
- Skip if: you haven't read the series — Narey and Winter's dynamic rewards prior context
About This Book
There are places beneath Glasgow that most people will never see — forgotten tunnels, buried rivers, the city's hidden skeleton — and it's in one of these lightless spaces that a body is discovered, turning an illegal hobby into a murder investigation. Craig Robertson uses the world of urban exploration, known as urbex, as the dark heart of this thriller: people who slip through locked doors and drop into culverted streams for the thrill of it, who document what the city tries to bury. DS Narey and photographer Tony Winter work the case from different angles, each carrying secrets that pull them in opposing directions, while a brewing gang war adds pressure from every side.
What distinguishes this entry in Robertson's Glasgow series is the texture — the prose is tight but genuinely atmospheric, making the underground sequences feel physically oppressive in the best way. Robertson clearly knows his city, and that specificity grounds the thriller mechanics in something that feels real and lived-in. The dual-investigation structure keeps the pacing taut without sacrificing character depth, and the urbex subculture provides a genuinely unusual lens through which to examine who gets forgotten and what cities choose to hide.
