The Missing and the Dead is the ninth instalment[1] in the bestselling Detective Sergeant McRae series of crime novels[2] set in Aberdeenshire from Stuart MacBride.

Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae manages to catch Graham Stirling who has kidnapped Stephen Bisset and tortured him.

Unfortunately the only way to get Stirling to talk is to break a few rules regarding procedure.... With Professional Standards breathing down his neck, Logan is sent on a "development opportunity"[3] babysitting a rural patch of north-east Aberdeenshire as a police Sergeant.

A child's body found in the Tarlair Swimming Pool, a hopeful mother of a dead girl and Detective Chief Inspector Steele messing things up really do not help Logan settle into his new job.

[9]Jane Jakeman, writing in The Independent, said "This is a big, fat book, with the story unrolling over nearly 600 pages, but the multiple plots move fast and MacBride convincingly conveys the dilapidated atmosphere of the police station – surely the most realistic in this fictional survey, with its peeling walls and ancient banter.