The Bookseller of Inverness: a gripping historical thriller from the double prizewinning author

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This vibrant tale of the residents of Inverness six years after the tragedy of the nearby Battle of Culloden, centres on former Jacobite, Iain MacGillivray, now running a popular bookshop. Hiding his scars behind his hair he endeavours to conduct a quiet life, after returning from exile in Virginia. Iain still lives with his grandmother Mairi Farqharson, one of the three Grande Dames who have been active in the cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Stewart family for over 30 years, since his mother ran away, and his father escaped to France. With its superbly realised scenes and spirited narration, this slice of historical fiction takes you on a wild ride The initial plot itself is probably the weakest part of the book, although it’s just about strong enough to carry it. It soon becomes clear that someone is seeking revenge against people who betrayed the Jacobite cause in the earlier rising, in 1715. Although we follow Hector’s and Iain’s investigations into this aspect, much is withheld from the reader, and indeed Hector withholds important information from Iain till late in the story. Oddly, despite this, I had a good idea of who both the avenger and the last victim were going to be, and I put this down to the fact that there weren’t enough credible possibilities. However, there’s a secondary plot which grows in importance as the book wears on, and this is much more successful, involving a possible new uprising and the fear that a traitor is still at work. Not gifted with his father’s resilience, Iain’s persisting trauma in the wake of the Jacobites’ defeat at Culloden is constantly triggered as the pair work together to discover the identity of both a murderer and the traitors he is targeting.

After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drummossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades. There are several other engaging characters including Ishbel MacLeod, who had recently returned from indenture as a servant in America, accompanied by a charming rascal, young Tormod, a half-caste boy she cares for. Others in the town are a mixture of Hanoverian supporters of King George and former Jacobites. The presence of many English soldiers is unnerving, some like Major Thornlie, polite and correct in his manner and others like Captain Dunne violent and uncouth. MacLean has the first-rate historical novelist's gift for bringing to life any period she writes about - Sunday Express This is an expertly plotted crime thriller built around the complexities of Jacobite histories: Walter Scott meets tartan noirBullough is the author of four novels and Sarn Helen, which was long-listed for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation, is his first work of non-fiction. He commented: “ Sarn Helen is a book of the ancient Welsh past, and of Wales as it is today, but above all it is a book about how we shape our future, given the climate and nature emergency. Although I’m rather tired of the Scottish obsession with the Jacobites, MacLean handles the historical aspects excellently, weaving real history seamlessly into her fictional plot. She takes the Jacobite side, as is de rigueur in modern Scotland – a bit like the Spanish Civil War, this period of history has been written mostly by the losers, and we all now like to pretend we’d have been Jacobites for the romance of it, however ahistorical that might be. But MacLean shows that there were good people and bad on both sides of the divide, and that honour wasn’t the sole preserve of the Jacobites. In this sense, it reminded me rather of DK Broster’s wonderful The Flight of the Heron trilogy, also seen from the Jacobite side but which also recognises that there were honourable people on the Hanoverian side. This is not, however, as romanticised as The Flight of the Heron – MacLean’s characters ring truer and this makes the book feel more modern, not in an anachronistic sense but in that they think and act as normal flawed humans, rather than as the impossibly virtuous Highlanders of Broster’s creation.

The country was moving to the Great Reform Act of 1832 outlawing slavery in the British dominions, something I couldn’t ignore. I’m not making this an issue book, but it was part of life then, and I found David Alston’s Slaves and Highlanders book very helpful.” Boots on the ground in Cromarty

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MacLean guides her characters through the twists of an intriguing plot with great aplomb - The Sunday Times on The House of Lamentations Most of the characters in the book are fictional, although many of them, as I discovered from the author’s note, are based on the lives and experiences of real people. One historical figure who plays an important part in the story without actually appearing in it is Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat – known as the ‘Old Fox’ – who readers of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series will remember as Jamie Fraser’s grandfather. Iain MacGillivray himself is an engaging character with an interesting past; I enjoyed getting to know him and reading about the work he and his assistants put into collecting, restoring and selling – or lending – books to the people of Inverness. She said: “I went to an Open Gardens Day there and found long gardens going uphill behind those huge mansion houses. gripping historical thriller set in Inverness in the wake of the 1746 battle of Culloden from twice CWA award-winning author S. G. MacLean. Perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom and Andrew Taylor.