No Good Deed

No Good Deed begins with what most thrillers would have as their climax--undercover cop Orla McLeod talks a young boy into cutting her free to fight back as drugs race catastrophically through her system and a colleague is tortured to death in another room. Orla is a woman who keeps her promises, and she promised the child that she would look after him, forever--and this she does, though Hell stands in her way. In this radical break with the intense, but comparably gentle, detective stories with which she started her career, Manda Scott gives us a full range of thriller experiences--brutal noir as the police try to persuade Glasgow's criminals to give up a torturer gang boss of whom everybody is afraid, Buchanesque wanderings through the snow-covered foothills of a remote mountain district and a sense of growing dread as we struggle to understand what made Tord Svensen the vicious killer he is, what Orla will have to learn to defeat him. No Good Deed is a meditation on vengeance and violence and their costs, and what it means to walk away and make other choices; it is one of the most remarkable thrillers of the year. --Roz Kaveney

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Probably the worst book I have ever read - Rated
I cannot believe the praise for this book, it is absolutely awful. I feel I have to add my review as I would have bought this book myself after reading the below. The book starts OK, although is very confusing and within a chapter or two just becomes ridiculous. I didn't realise under cover police officers would actually become prostitutes and drug addicts in their quest to bring down a crime lord, ludicrous! I could be wrong but when an operation goes drastically wrong shouldn't all agents be pulled out, not left to carry on selling themselves on street corners to then be slaughtered? The writers' prose is laughable, I've never heard a dogs tail described as 'a tapping extension of his spine'. I felt like I was reading the most pretentious load of nonsense from someone who obviously tried to balance the 'beauty' of her words with the grit of the storyline, she failed dismally. There is also a mute child in the book, who is called the 'youth' throughout, his name is Jamie, whom Orla and Murdo(?) kidnap and change the national databases to avoid detection, as I didn't finish the book I have no idea where this story line was going.

Although I bought this book from a charity shop for £1, I still feel robbed. I had to throw this book in the bin, such was my utter disgust.

Her best - Rated
I have read and enjoyed all Manda Scott's crime novels but this is by far the best. In fact it is one of the best crime novels I have ever read. Scott's prose style is strong, her characters are all well rounded and fascinating, she has a good sense of location and she is a master of suspense and drama. This is the only crime novel I have read three times (and counting) - even when you know who dunnit it is still well worth reading again.

As good as rankin - Rated
After reading all of Ian Rankins books i have found someone else who matches up to his savage and detailed look into the scottish underworld. Manda Scott takes you from the Glasgow slums to the highlands with breathtaking ease. This book kept me up for three nights i just had to keep reading the next chapter.
I hope her next book will be another Orla Mcleod stunner.

HOW FAR IS TOO FAR TO KEEP A PROMISE?? - Rated
Not having read MANDA SCOTT before - or RANKIN, to whom she has been likened - I was uncertain what to expect.
However, my trepidation was without foundation. From the confusing, hectic and gruesome opening, in a Glasgow tenement, via the idyllic beauty of the Scottish Highlands, Scott has constructed a taut, nerve-jangling tour de force. Whether describing lowlifes in Glasgow's worst slum areas - notably the Mick Belker-like Andy, who is so far undercover as to be positively subterranean - or the sweeping grandeur of the equally brutal Highlands, Scott takes us on a journey of discovery. Via the noble savage, Murdo, and the unreadable Strang, we are drawn inevitably to the enigmatic Orla, ostensible heroine of the book. When her righteous quest for justice begins to encompass the very crimes she set out to avenge, she must question her motives. And whether the promise she made a nine-year-old boy is worth betraying the ghosts of her violent past.
A wee gem, and no mistake. I anticipate Scott's next with bated breath.

An absolutely gripping story - Rated
Although it is a break from her usual style, I think this book surpasses the promise of her earlier work. It is extremely well thought out, the characters are believable, the surroundings can be "seen" from the descriptions, the plot is just complicated enough without being so convoluted that you lose track. It is really difficult to put the book down between chapters.......always a sign of a good read!