7 Hills

Summer, 1976: the legendary heatwave when Wings, The Starland Vocal Band, Elton John and Kiki Dee rules the airwaves. For over two baking months, Edinburgh sweats like a Presbyterian minister in a dockside whorehouse. As the mighty WHO once exclaimed: The Kids Are Alright; and, for a brief moment, they are. The dreich 'Athens of the North' has been transformed into an Iberian beach resort. Flesh sizzles, clothes are discarded, lager downed, and ice cream consumed by the lorry-load. Even Portobello Beach fleetingly resembles a place where you can actually visit and have fun in the sun (rather than pain in the rain). For a short while, it's glorious. But then the killing starts and Edinburgh rapidly becomes reacquainted with the harsher realities in life and, more particularly, death. First, one body. Then another. And another. All dumped on top of the city's ancient volcanic hills. The Summer of Joy has, in a heartbeat, morphed into a season of terror and death. And all this just at a time when the ill-equipped Edinburgh police force has little experience and even fewer ideas on how to catch a determined serial killer. The lives of many local young women now rest in the trembling hands of one man and his motley crew of detectives. His name? Detective Inspector Frank McCain.DI McCain's life resembles a car crash in slow motion. Physically and mentally damaged in the line of duty, he is now separated from his long-suffering wife and addicted to fags and booze. Given that his idea of salvation can be found in a blended whisky bottle, the auguries are not good. First set to The Edinburgh Strangler. New balls please. So...not much of a start. It looks as if the heatwave's reign of terror will be unstoppable. But then a speck of light appears at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. Help is at hand. From a woman. Thousands of miles away in a place where "people talk funny". And for the sexist McCain and his troglodyte team this will prove to be a dazzlingly - albeit uncomfortable - awakening. Game on.