Skinner's Rules
Quintin Jardine
 The novel, like all in the Skinner series, is set in Edinburgh. It features, Head of CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Skinner and his assistant Detective Inspector Andrew Martin. It begins when they are called to a close in the Royal Mile where an advocate by the name of Michael Mortimer has been savagely murdered and mutilated. It isn't long before another murder takes place in a similar location and the police think that it is likely to be the work of a psychopathic serial killer. However, the case takes a dramatic twist when Mortimer's fiancee is also found dead and it appears to Bob Skinner that there is a definite connection despite three seemingly random murders in between, leading to what could be a deep-rooted international conspiracy. The book also introduces us to Skinner's future wife, Dr Sarah Grace, an American physician who works with the police force.