Empty Nets and Promises — Denzil Meyrick

It's July 1968, and redoubtable fishing-boat skipper Sandy Hoynes has his daughter's wedding to pay for â€" but where are all the fish? He and the crew of the Girl Maggie come to the conclusion that a new-fangled supersonic jet which is being tested in the skies over Kinloch is scaring off the herring.

First mate Hamish, first encountered in the DCI Daley novels, comes up with a cunning plan to bring the laws of nature back into balance. But as the wily crew go about their work, little do they know that they face the forces of law and order in the shape of a vindictive fishery officer, an exciseman who suspects Hoynes of smuggling illicit whisky, and the local police sergeant who is about to become Hoynes's son-in-law.

Meyrick takes us back to the halcyon days of light-hearted Scottish fiction, following in the footsteps of Compton Mackenzie and Neil Munro, with hilarious encounters involving the US Navy, Russian trawlermen and even some ghostly pipers.