Prayer for the Dead cover art

Prayer for the Dead

Inspector McLean 5

Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Prayer for the Dead

By: James Oswald
Narrated by: Ian Hanmore
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Sunday Times bestseller Prayer for the Dead, from the bestselling Inspector McLean series by Sunday Times bestselling author James Oswald, read by Ian Hanmore.

'Are you ready to be reborn?'

The search for a missing journalist is called off as a body is found at the scene of a carefully staged murder.

In a sealed chamber, deep in the heart of Gilmerton Cove, a mysterious network of caves and passages sprawling beneath Edinburgh, the victim has undergone a macabre ritual of purification.

Inspector Tony McLean knew the dead man, and can't shake off the suspicion that there is far more to this case than meets the eye. The baffling lack of forensics at the crime scene seems impossible. But it is not the only thing about this case that McLean will find beyond belief.

Teamed with the most unlikely and unwelcome of allies, he must track down a killer driven by the darkest compulsions, who will answer only to a higher power...

'Are you ready for the mysteries to be revealed?'

Praise for James Oswald:

'A star of Scotland's burgeoning crime fiction scene' Daily Record
'Crime fiction's next big thing' The Sunday Telegraph
'Literary sensation . . .James' overnight success has drawn comparisons with the meteoric rise of E L James and her Fifty Shades of Grey series' Daily Mail
'Fifty Shades of Hay' The Times
'Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers' Daily Mail
'The new Ian Rankin' Daily Record
'The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin: it's dark, violent, noirish' The Herald
'An excellent start to what promises to be a fine series' Guardian
'Classy, occasionally brutal, and with the odd suggestion of the supernatural, this will doubtless be another deserved hit. Oswald's writing is in a class above most in this genre' Daily Express

Crime Thrillers Mystery Police Procedurals Suspense Thriller & Suspense

Critic Reviews

The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin: it's dark, violent, noirish
Crime fiction's next big thing
Literary sensation . . . James' overnight success has drawn comparisons with the meteoric rise of E L James and her Fifty Shades of Grey series
Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers
Fifty Shades of Hay
All stars
Most relevant
Loving these books and the narrator. Such a great twist to have the supernatural elements in each story. Just about to download the next in the series.

Tony McLean series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great story, but they need to redo the parts where the narrator whispers in an unintelligible whistling mumble.

The whispering is TERRIBLE

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Tony McLean is such a likeable guy, the people who surround him are growing more and more interesting. Plots are great, sometimes the unraveling of the end result can be a bit quick but doesn’t take away from the overall stories. Great stuff, very entertaining!


Just can’t stop listening to this series!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Very tight story which develops some interesting relationships to explore in future tales. Narration was perfectly done.

Always delivers

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

While it was a pleasure to listen to Ian Hanmore's lovely voice for over 12 hours, this DI Tony McLean story is unnecessarily long and confusing. Too many things happening, too much detail about the mundanities of McLean's daily routine (how many times do we really need to be told he has a mountain of paperwork on his desk, how many post-mortems does he really need to attend, must every single handshake be descibed???). And for pity sake Tony, stop feeding the poor cat on takeout curry!

Far too long.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.