When private enquiry agent Oz Blackstone takes on the job of finding an insurance company's missing half million, he's hoping for a healthy finder's fee, not a life-changing experience. But when he finds the corpse of the would-be embezzler with a knife in his back and no sign of the missing money, what had seemed like a routine job begins to look distinctly dodgy. Until the captivating Primavera 'Prim' Phillips arrives on the scene, wondering why she's been greeted not by her sister Dawn, but Dawn's dead boyfriend and a rather nervous-looking private eye. For Oz, things are looking up. This is the kind of girl who's definitely worth pursuing. Especially if she knows where to get her hands on half a million pounds ...

'After what happened, none of us can be sure we're going to see tomorrow'The killing was an expert hit. Three shots through the head, as the lights dimmed at a celebrity concert in Glasgow. A most public crime, and Edinburgh Chief Constable Bob Skinner is right in the centre of the storm, as it breaks over the Strathclyde force.The shooters are dead too, killed at the scene. But who sent them? The crisis finds Skinner, his private life shattered by the shocking end of his marriage, taking a step that he had sworn he never would. Tasked by Scotland's First Minister with the investigation of the outrage, he finds himself quickly uncovering some very murky deeds...The trail leads to London, where national issues compromise the hunt. Skinner has to rattle the bars of the most formidable cage in the country, and go head to head with its leading power brokers . . . a confrontation that seems too much, even for him. Can the Chief solve the most challenging mystery of his career . . . or will failure end it?About the AuthorQuintin Jardine is the author of the Bob Skinner Mysteries and the Oz Blackstone series.

LAST RESORT is the twenty-fifth novel in the Bob Skinner series by Quintin Jardine, Scotland's master of crime, and sees the Edinburgh cop back as never before. After thirty years of service, former Chief Constable Bob Skinner faces the possible end of his police career, at its pinnacle. A trip to Catalunya to contemplate his future soon takes on a different flavour when Skinner is asked by an friend, Xavier Aislado, to track down one of his business's brightest talents, vanished without a trace. But it soon becomes clear that another manhunt is in progress, and that Skinner himself is the target. While his daughter Alex fights that battle at home, Skinner's own search takes one sinister turn after another, until he is faced with the toughest question of all: Is natural justice sometimes the only answer? **Review Very engaging as well as ingenious, and the unraveling of the mystery is excellently done Allan Massie - Scotsman Well constructed, fast-paced, Jardine's narrative has many an ingenious twist and turn Observer Remarkably assured, raw-boned, a tour de force New York Times About the Author Quintin Jardine was born once upon a time in the West - of Scotland rather than America, but still he grew to manhood as a massive Sergio Leone fan. On the way there he was educated, against his will, in Glasgow, where he ditched a token attempt to study law for more interesting careers in journalism, government propaganda, and political spin-doctoring. After a close call with the Brighton Bomb in 1984, he moved into the even riskier world of media relations consultancy, before realising that all along he had been training to become a crime writer. Now, forty novels later, he never looks back. Along the way he has created/acquired an extended family in Scotland and Spain. Everything he does is for them. He can be tracked down through his blog: http://quintinjardine.me 

Her mind still filled with thoughts of her dead ex-husband, Oz, Primavera Blackstone is in Spain with their son Tom when their peace is breached again with the arrival of her elderly but formidable aunt, Adrienne McGowan. All is not well in Auntie Ades world; her roguish son Frank has become involved with a shady international casino project and has disappeared. Prim flies to Seville to track him down, only to find herself a fugitive, with her life under threat, as her aunt joins the missing persons list, and Tom is forced to flee to safety. As she and her companion in danger cross Spain in a struggle to keep themselves alive, and to free Adrienne, Prim finds herself at the centre of a maelstrom of mystery...

A tranquil Spanish village by the sea is the perfect place for Primavera Blackstone to raise her ten-year-old Tom, son of the late lamented Oz, especially when they are joined by his nephew, tyro pro golfer Jonny Sinclair. But when her best friend Shirley introduces her new man, Patterson Cowling, he seems to be a trouble magnet. A casual thief tries to pick his pocket and is found a few days later with his face blown off. A bloody coincidence, or does Patterson Cowling have a past to protect? As the body count rises, and Primavera becomes den mother to an extended golfing family, it seems that homicide is par for the course, and that hazards lie in wait for everyone. Can she save the day, or is the game just too rough?

After cracking their first case together as a private investigation team, Oz Blackstone and Primavera Phillips find themselves simultaneously in love and in the money. And where better to lie back and contemplate life than the picturesque village of St Marti, on the rugged Costa Brava. But beneath the surface of their idyllic new home bubbles a brew of intrigue, deception - and murder. Before long Prim and Oz find themselves helping to evict a skeletal squatter whom the locals fear might harm the tourist trade, as well as trying to authenticate a previously undiscovered Dali masterpiece bought by a gullible client at a highly unconventional auction...

Terrorists strike at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival in Quintin Jardine's fantastic second novel in the highly popular Bob Skinner series. An explosion rocks Princes Street in the midst of the Edinburgh Festival. Responsibility is claimed by a group supposedly demanding political separation from Britain, but as atrocities escalate Skinner realises this is no gang of fanatics, but a highly professional team. But the Fighters haven't reckoned with Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner, head of the Edinburgh CID and security adviser to Secretary of State Alan Ballantyne...

For Oz Blackstone, the days of getting into trouble for a living, otherwise known as being a private enquiry agent, could soon be behind him. An undercover stint posing as a TV wrestling Master of Ceremonies has convinced him that he might just have a bit of a hidden theatrical talent. So when Oz gets the chance of a bit-part in a movie, it seems like an offer he can't refuse - even though his own life is fast developing a dramatic storyline of its own, with a frightening series of accidents befalling people close to him. And when the female lead is kidnapped from the set in a bizarre echo of the movie's rollercoaster plot, fiction and reality come together in a terrifying climax. But has Oz got what it takes to save the day?