Tag: Scotland

Day 377: Gods and Beasts

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Cover for Gods and BeastsMartin Pavel is standing behind an old man and a child in the post office waiting to mail Christmas packages when a gunman comes in. The old man pushes the little boy toward Martin and behaves as if he knows the gunman. The gunman forces the old man to assist him in the robbery and then shoots him.

Things are going better for DS Alex Morrow than they have in awhile. She finally admitted her relationship with her criminal half-brother Danny Boyle to her supervisors and has been investigated and cleared of any suspicion of wrong-doing. She also gave birth to twins four months ago and is happy in her marriage. Her habitual anger has stopped simmering below the surface.

Morrow’s team is surprised to find no ties to crime on the part of the victim, Brendan Lyon, a former union organizer. The tattooed Pavel turns out to be a wealthy do-gooder. The police are having a hard time figuring out how Lyon could have known the gunman.

In a parallel story that seems unrelated until the very end of the novel, labor leader Kenny Gallagher, a rock star in politics, can feel the support of his constituency ebbing. His leadership is being challenged, he is being accused of improprieties with a young party member, and his wife wants a divorce.

Alex soon finds that two officers on her team were lured into taking a bribe, and then a third has a sack of cash thrown into his car. As she investigates these incidents, she begins to uncover a web of corruption.

On the home front, she is tentatively exploring normal family relations with Danny. He says he’s retiring from crime, but is he?

I discovered Denise Mina’s gritty crime novels shortly after the publication of her first book. They are unfailingly excellent, with gripping plots, complex characters, and complicated moral dilemmas. Mina’s writing is spare and elegant. You can’t go wrong with her if you have a taste for dark, dramatic crime novels.

Day 363: The Captive Crown

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyAt the beginning of this novel, the third in Tranter’s Stewart Trilogy, Jamie Douglas has fled to the highlands after being declared an outlaw following the disastrous battle of Homildon. That no Scot who fought in the battle would so call him is no concern to Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and the Governor of Scotland.

Jamie is living with his family on the estate of Alexander Stewart of Badenoch, acting Justicaire of the Highlands. Although King Robert III is still alive, he has handed over the government to his brother Robert of Albany. His young son James, heir to the throne, has been captured by the English on his way to France, where his father sent him for safety after the death of his older son, David, at the time in Robert of Albany’s custody.

Jamie, who has always believed that the Duke of Albany plotted the murder of his chief, the Earl of Douglas, also believes that David Stewart was starved to death at Albany’s order. Jamie is content to stay away from the Lowlands and serve with Alexander.

The plot of this novel is a lot more difficult to describe than that of the other two, as it covers the significant events of several years in Alexander Stewart’s life, including battling the invasions of Donald of the Isles, forming an embassy to the British to treat for the release of King James after Robert III’s death, privateering against the British, and so on. This is a fault with the novel, constrained as it is by actual historical events to seem disjointed. It is definitely the weakest of the trilogy and does not make a satisfying ending for the series.

Day 337: A Folly of Princes

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyIn the sequel to Lords of Misrule, Prince David Stewart is now a young man ready to challenge his ruthless uncle Robert Stewart for the Governorship of Scotland, under the weak rule of David’s father, Robert III. Jamie Stewart, our hero, who has always suspected Robert Stewart of having his lord, the Earl of Douglas, murdered, has declared himself David’s man.

But the Stewarts are an unruly bunch. David’s governorship is more fair and less corrupt than his uncle’s, and he puts in place reforms, but he takes no care in dealing with the proud nobles of Scotland and behaves wildly and promiscuously in his private  life. Although Jamie continues to support him, he is disappointed in his prince and fears that all will not be well.

While this is going on, changes in the Plantagenet monarchy in England threaten the border. At the same time, Donald of the Isles is making his own forays farther north. This northern threat gives Jamie an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with Alexander Stewart of Badenoch.

Again, Nigel Tranter does a wonderful job of explaining the complicated politics and alliances of early 15th century Scotland, while spinning an absorbing adventure story.

Day 327: The Five Red Herrings

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Cover for Five Red HerringsAlthough I am normally a fan of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey series, The Five Red Herrings is exactly the novel I’m talking about when I say that I don’t care for the Golden Age mysteries full of railway timetables. This type of novel boils down to a puzzle designed to confuse the reader with a lot of detail. I do like Lord Peter, but I like him better when I have to keep track of fewer things.

Lord Peter is visiting an artists’ colony in Scotland when a painter is found dead. He is Sandy Campbell, a talented artist but one who also has a talent for getting drunk and picking fights. He is found in a stream with his half-finished painting on the bank high above, and the reasonable explanation is that he accidentally fell to his death. However, Lord Peter immediately notices inconsistencies that make it impossible for Campbell to have painted the picture.

Whoever the murderer is, he or she must also have been a talented painter, for the picture is exactly in Campbell’s style. Six other artists in the area who had quarrels with Campbell have enough ability to be the killer. Some of them have convincing alibis, and the solution revolves around–yes–railway timetables.

As usual, Lord Peter is entertaining. His man Bunter is not as much in evidence as in other novels, which is a little disappointing, but Sayers capably depicts a group of colorful suspects.

Day 311: Lords of Misrule

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyNigel Tranter was a historian and a prolific historical fiction writer whose work can be uneven. During the 1950’s through 1990’s he wrote more than 60 historical novels, some of which employ dialogue and characterization only to drive the plot forward. Such is not the case, however with Lords of Misrule, the first book in his Stewart Trilogy, a novel that is fully realized.

Jamie Douglas is a young esquire to the Earl of Douglas, the most powerful man in 14th century Scotland, certainly more powerful than the King, Robert II, a sorry descendent of Robert the Bruce and doddering old man who just wants to be left alone. The King has spawned a clutch of squabbling Stewarts who are waiting to see what happens when he dies. Unfortunately, his oldest son, John, seems unsuited to power, and his second son, Robert, is ambitious and dangerous.

When Jamie’s lord is foully stabbed in the back by his own armorer during battle, Jamie fears that any of several powerful men may have had enough to gain in the subsequent power vacuum among the Douglasses to have suborned the armorer. But when Robert Stewart, acting as his father’s Governor, appoints his good friend Archie Douglas to take the position of Earl, Jamie’s suspicions point to Robert.

Jamie and some other men lie in wait outside the armorer’s home after they figure out where he is hiding, in hopes they can capture him and question him about who paid him to murder the Earl. Their plans go awry, however, ultimately sending Jamie Douglas north in pursuit of another man, to the Highland territories of the dreaded Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, known as the Wolf of Badenoch.

This novel provides a fascinating glimpse into the rivalries and political in-fighting among the early Stewarts. It has an appealing protagonist, although Jamie is a bit too honest and outspoken for his own good. It also includes a romance, as Jamie is drawn to two different Stewart women while serving a third, his Earl’s widow. Having learned most of my Scottish history from the excellent historical novels of Dorothy Dunnett, I am not accustomed to thinking of Douglasses as heroes, but Jamie makes a good one.

Day 268: Still Midnight

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Cover for Still MidnightWhen I first started reading this crime novel, I had the feeling it would end badly. However, although it is very complex, it ties up loose ends in a satisfying way.

Alex Morrow is a bitter Glasgow cop who feels she has to compete with her male colleagues, especially with Bannerman, who is favored by her boss. It is her turn to take the next big case, but when an elderly Ugandan man is abducted from his home, the boss gives the case to Bannerman.

We follow the inept, amateurish kidnappers, who have smashed their way into the house demanding a person who has never lived there or been inside. On the other hand, we watch Morrow’s attempts to work on the case without letting Bannerman take the credit for all her breakthroughs.

I have long been a fan of Denise Mina, who has written several gritty series providing us fascinating glimpses of a grim urban Scotland.

Day 251: The Disorderly Knights

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Cover for The Disorderly KnightsBest Book of the Week!
The Disorderly Knights is the third novel in Dorothy Dunnett’s rousing Lymond Chronicles series. I previously reviewed the first two novels, The Game of Kings and Queen’s Play.

Upon his return to Scotland from his adventures in France, Francis Crawford of Lymond establishes a small fighting force of independent knights and begins training them. As their reputation spreads, the band begins to attract more knights, and he hears that they are to be joined by a renowned fighter, Sir Graham Reid Mallett, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. John. Many of the men who know Reid Mallet consider him almost a living saint. In disposition and talents he seems to be a perfect foil for Lymond, but they clash, and some of Lymond’s men begin to turn against him. As usual, Lymond’s behavior appears to put him in the wrong, and Reid Mallett seems to want to usurp the fighting force.

This conflict eventually leads to Malta, where Lymond arrives just before the Ottoman Turks attack. During the siege, Lymond becomes involved in the political maneuvering and feuds among the various national factions of the declining Order of St. John. He also hears that Oonagh O’Dwyer, the beautiful Irish rebel he encountered in Queen’s Play, is captive in another city on the island. After the siege, he follows her to North Africa in an attempt to free her.

It is difficult to write more about this novel because of spoilers, but also because the plot becomes increasingly complex from this point on, with threads that are not all explained until the sixth book. Suffice it to say that, although this is a slow-starting series, if you get this far, you will be hooked. The novel is suspenseful and exciting, and Lymond makes a complicated and compelling main character, almost an anti-hero at times. These books were written in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and I think the only series to compare with them might be George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice or Dunnett’s own House of Niccolo series.

Day 209: A Darker Domain

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Cover for A Darker DomainAt the beginning of A Darker Domain, Michelle Gibson comes into the police station to report that her father, Mick Prentice, is missing, actually has been missing for 25 years. He was believed to have left his small mining village during a miner’s strike to scab for another mine in Nottingham years ago, which was considered an act of betrayal. Now that his daughter is trying to find him, she learns he isn’t in Nottingham and never has been.

In the meantime, a case from the same period is being reopened, the kidnapping of Catriona Grant and her baby son Adam, during which Catriona was killed. Someone has found a copy of the ransom poster and a large pool of blood in a deserted Tuscan villa.

Detective Inspector Karen Pirie, head of the cold case group in Fife, is working both cases. The memories of the various witnesses appear as flashbacks and parallel narrations, and the story moves swiftly forward as Karen’s cases begin to converge. Val McDermid usually writes complex and exciting thrillers, and this novel is no exception.

Day 185: Haunt Me Still

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Cover for Haunt Me StillHaunt Me Still (published as The Shakespearean Curse in Britain) is another enjoyable literary mystery by Jennifer Lee Carrell. Shakespearean scholar and theatre director Kate Stanley visits Lady Nairn to discuss a production of Macbeth. Lady Nairn, once a renowned actress, plans a production of the play at the foot of Dunsinane Hill using some props from her own collection and wants Kate to direct.

Once the cast arrives at Lady Nairn’s Scottish castle, though, Kate sees a vision of Lady Nairn’s fifteen-year-old granddaughter Lily being murdered and finds the body of a local woman dead at the scene of what appears to be a pagan sacrifice. Then Lily is kidnapped. The ransom demanded is an earlier version of Macbeth that is reputed to include actual magical ceremonies.

On the romantic side, Kate and Ben Pearl have broken up, but Ben reappears, dating an actress in the play.

This novel is loaded with action, as well as witches, curses, cauldrons, crazed killers, some 16th century history, and an exploration of the myths surrounding the play. In other words, it’s a lot of fun.

Day 158: Death of a Maid

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Cover for Death of a MaidI have been curious about M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series ever since seeing an episode or two of the TV series, so I finally picked up Death of a Maid. Luckily, I only invested a dollar in this purchase.

Mrs. Gillespie is the best maid in town, but she is also a malicious gossip. Hamish Macbeth has won her services in a raffle but he spends most of the day trying to avoid her. Then she is found bashed in the head with a bucket in the house of a retired professor who was out all day. Hamish, who spends his time trying not to look good at his job for fear of promotion, finds there are loads of suspects.

Meanwhile, an old girlfriend has arrived in town with a new suitor, and Hamish is feeling jealous.

I don’t think I have ever read a book where the author has made less of an effort. The novel devolves into a series of short scenes that all seem to be prematurely cut off, usually by someone flouncing away even in the midst of being questioned by the police. The mystery is only difficult to solve because the book is littered with suspects. Macbeth catches the murderer 20 or 30 pages from the end of the book, but it continues to maunder on as if the author doesn’t know how to finish. Although I know this is a popular series, in my opinion it has run its course.