L is for...

Lin Anderson - Lin Anderson is a screenwriter and author. Her crime novels feature forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. There are, so far, five novels in the series, starting with DRIFTNET, which has Rhona investigating the murder of a teenager who she fears may be the son she gave up for adoption seventeen years previously. The latest in the series, EASY KILL, starts with the discovery of the body of a murdered prostitute in Glasgow's Necropolis - the city of the dead.
"The adventures of Anderson's heroine Rhona MacLeod, the sexy thirty-something forensic scientist from Glasgow at the heart of this, the author's fourth novel, would make Ian Rankin's old man Rebus choke on his whisky chaser. Which is just the reaction that Anderson is looking for. "Every one of my books begins with a very scary scene" she explains. Dark Flight certainly knows how to splash the red stuff. Anderson's tale of black magic, ritual sacrifice, and child abduction chills the blood." - The Big Issue.

Louise Anderson - Louise Anderson's first book - PERCEPTION OF DEATH - was published in 2004. It features lawyer Erin Paterson who discovers her boyfriend is having an affair on the same day an old school friend of her sister is murdered. There is, apparently, a second book in the series called DEATH'S SISTER which was published in either 2006, 2008, April 2009, or not at all, and which does not appear to be available*. This article might shed a bit of light on that.
"I really enjoyed it – she’s a breath of fresh air in the Scottish crime fiction field. It’s got lots of genuinely black comedic moments but also some grimly painful storytelling" - Val McDermid
*update courtesy of crimeficreader - the outcome is 'not at all'. Thanks cfr!

Louise Welsh - Louise Welsh's debut novel THE CUTTING ROOM won a number of awards, and rightly so. The protagonist is gay auctioneer, Rilke, who finds a collection of unsavoury and sometimes apparently violent photographs when cleaning out a house for an old lady. Harrowing, creepy and laden with doom. Her third novel - THE BULLET TRICK - is set in Berlin, Glasgow and London and is a mystery featuring a magician who is persuaded to pick the pocket of a retiring police inspector.
"remarkable first novel....Like all the best exponents of the genre, Louise Welsh sets up her template and then manipulates it, using the glamour of crime to examine more humdrum kinds of suffering and loss....She is playfully referential; one reason this novel is such fun to read is that it feels as though the author's enjoying herself." Sophie Harrison, The New York Times Book Review