Down and dirty among the spooks and spies of Scottish politicsCITY LIFE Scotland 2009 - Gordon Brown's Labour Cabinet imploding, an expenses scandal rocking Westminster, a minority SNP government threatening the union. Journalist Willie Morton is accosted by a man claiming a crucial by-election in Glenforgan, unexpectedly won by Labour, was rigged. He's sceptical - until he learns the ballot papers have mysteriously been destroyed and cannot be checked. Then the Deputy Returning Officer is found dead. Morton's investigations lead him into an underworld of fringe politics, the sinister and elusive Raymond Mearns and a derelict cottage at East Wemyss. He tracks Mearns into a coastal cave - a hidden entrance to disused mine workings - but knocked unconscious in the absolute darkness, it looks like a dead end... Pacy political thrillers stalking the uneasy, ambiguous terrain of the UK's constitutional crisis THE NATIONAL