Quintin Jardine"s thrillers about Scots Special Branch officers have for the most part concentrated on Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner; Thursday Legends is more of an ensemble piece in which all his colleagues play a part. Their former boss Alec Smith is found horribly tortured to death, and the question arises, as they go over Smith"s old cases, of just how many enemies Smith had, just how many people might have wanted to kill him so badly. For one thing, Smith was none too fussy about the rules--it emerges that his cutting of corners included frame-ups, torture and the commissioning of assassination; for another, the more his former colleagues discover about the man they thought they knew, the less they like what they find. Another corpse turns up in the river, battered beyond recognition, and killed at about the same time as Smith; coincidence, or something more sinister? Is there any connection with the group of middle-aged amateurs, the Thursday Legends, with whom Smith used to play football, and Skinner still does? This is an ingeniously plotted police procedural that asks interesting questions about the rules which apply to investigations at the edge of what is civilised, plays intelligently with extremes. --Roz Kaveney