
Published: 20/08/2020

Written with jet-black humour and compelling verve, the second book in Johnstone’s Skelfs series finds the funeral directors-cum-private investigators dig deep into the murky past of a man who drove his car into an empty grave.
Longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021
Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors' and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can't help looking into the dead driver's shadowy life.
While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny's ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women's lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy's disappears and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves sucked into an unbearable darkness - but could the real threat be to themselves?
Following three women as they deal with the dead, help the living and find out who they are in the process, The Big Chill follows A Dark Matter, book one in the Skelfs series, which reboots the classic PI novel while asking the big existential questions, all with a big dose of pitch-black humour.
Publisher: Orenda Books
ISBN: 9781913193348
Number of pages: 300
Dimensions: 198 x 130 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Compelling, compassionate ... just brilliant. This series gets better with every book. I cannot get enough of the Skelfs'- Mark Billingham
'Brilliantly drawn and blackly comic' - Herald Scotland
'Confirms the Skelfs as a classic crime clan. I can't wait for the next one' - Erin Kelly
'I LOVE the Skelfs ... The only problem with The Big Chill is that you'll devour it so fast you'll feel as bereft as one of the Skelfs' clients ... Doug Johnstone has murdered sleep' - Val McDermid
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“Funny!”
Thank you to the publisher for this early review copy.
This follows on the Skelf women series from A Dark Matter, another deliciously funny crime read.
I would probably suggest you read A Dark Matter first for best...
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“I could not put them down”
Just read both the Skelf books and I loved them. They are so good and so many strands to follow. The characters leap from the page and worm their way into your brain. Doug seems to get better with every book he... More

“Unfailingly perceptive”
When I reviewed A Dark Matter, the first of this trilogy, I knew from the outset that Doug Johnstone had produced something very special indeed. Focusing the book on this triumvirate of utterly compelling female... More
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