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

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The Historial Dagger for the best historical crime novel, is open to books first published in the UK in English, set in any period up to 50 years prior to the year in which the award will be made. It was really lovely. At Cromarty on the second night, we were just getting up from dinner to head for a pub quiz when I got a text message from my agent to say this book had been longlisted for the Gold Dagger! The Highland Archive Centre, also based in Inverness, had re-opened to the public early on, and it was there that I read the manuscript letter book of Baillie John Steuart, a prominent C18th Inverness merchant with a vast family who seemed had settled in every far-flung part of the globe. The Bailie’s newsy, pleading letters to family and friends are revelatory of the lives of townspeople at the time, but the longer I read, the more convinced I became that he – a known Jacobite – was using his letters to make clandestine plans with fellow-Jacobites at home and abroad. Setting the letters against subsequently-known historical events, it seemed to me that his mundane family letters might well be a coded front for something else entirely. I had some fun making the Bailie a character in my book.

This is an expertly plotted crime thriller built around the complexities of Jacobite histories: Walter Scott meets tartan noir Hector MacGillivray is a charismatic charmer, and as we watch him raise flagging spirits and revive the hopes of men who had thought their cause lost, it’s tempting to see him as SG MacLean’s proxy for Bonnie Prince Charlie, a constant ‘off camera’ presence. Next Tuesday (May16), Shona will be HighlandLIT's guest at the Glen Mhor Hotel, Ness Bank, Inverness – talking about her career, latest book and researching and writing historical fiction – in the free event postponed by bad weather in January. It will be in person and livestreamed on Zoom. From 6-7pm there will be socialising at the in-person event, then Shona will talk from 7-9pm. The story has all the elements - intrigue, twists and a touch of romance - and MacLean weaves fact and fiction together wonderfully to produce a highly enjoyable read.While researching in the Highland Archive in Inverness, she came across an intriguing record of a subscription library operating in Cromarty in 1832. The fifth and final book in a gripping series of crime novels . . . the last outing does a credit to our 17th-century hero. I will miss Damian Seeker - The Times on The House of Lamentations The awards specifically champion books by Scottish and Welsh authors, or titles that have strong Scottish or Welsh settings. It is also our best-selling Scottish Book of The Month ever. It is without a doubt that an author of Shona’s calibre rightly deserves to be the winner of The Waterstones Scottish Book of The Year. I cannot wait for us to get this novel both into the hands of customers who have read her earlier books and those to whom she is a new voice as there is something in this book for everyone”. Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Thirty-six years later, six years after the Jacobites’ final, failed rebellion of 1745, Iain MacGillivray is a lost soul. He gets up each morning, dresses and goes to his bookshop where he endures another day of a life he no longer finds meaningful. As the story unfolds , the book explains the various intrigues and connections surrounding the Jacobite cause across the years. This is never ‘heavy’ though and gives the reader enough to understand without burdening them with the weight of history.Hector’s flamboyant delivery of himself into English hands, while repaying a debt of honour, could easily be seen as symbolic of some of the Prince’s more quixotic decisions and goes some way, perhaps, to explaining why, despite their passionate convictions, the Stuarts could not prevail against the ruthless pragmatism of the English state. Needless to say, Shona has been pounding the pavements of Cromarty in pursuit of her characters, atmosphere and inspiration. A gripping historical thriller set in Inverness in the wake of the 1746 battle of Culloden. Perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom and Andrew Taylor. I sketched out a short story, and left it at that. I’d known the story of the Jacobites for as long as I could remember. Born in Inverness and brought up in the Highlands, it was impossible not to know of the failed rising of Charles Edward Stuart – Bonnie Prince Charlie – which had aimed at restoring his family to the British throne. The events of the aftermath of that failure still resonate today – my husband is even headteacher of Culloden Academy, which faces directly across to Culloden House, in which the prince spent the night before the battle and the victorious Duke of Cumberland the night after.

She was easy to write,” Shona said, “and a good foil for Lady Anne, as I wanted a more satisfying personal life for her.” MacLean’s book is an excellent example of a well-written and researched historical fiction. My knowledge of the conflict between Stuart and Hanover supporters, especially from the point of view of the Scottish Highlanders, is limited, but the author created a believable, detailed and fascinating world. He also supplied an extensive reading list for those seeking biographical or historical knowledge. The importance of local politics for the novel’s plot made me worried that the book would become overwhelming, but that never happened. The necessary information is supplied in an accessible form, and the intrigue keeps the reader’s interest peaked. I won a bottle of Laphroaig in a game during the quiz interval – then had another message to say the book had also been longlisted for the Historical Dagger! 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. 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.I enjoyed reading descriptions of the surrounding countryside, where I have family connections, and there is an increasing air of tension as old resentments surface and revenge is enacted. There are two questions to be answered. Who is the murderer, and can Iain find the other traitors first? Certainly, he realises he can no longer leave the past behind and he finally gains real understanding of his charismatic father, Hector.

There’s something afoot you see. Talk about atmosphere and compelling foreshadowing. I knew something was up – someone is lurking in his bookshop and he confronts Iain, saying he will not leave until he’s found it. It’;s only when the shop shuts that he eventually leaves. Howver, the next morning, when Iain comes to open the door, he finds the stranger dead, his throat cut and a sword lying beside the body. The sword wuth the emblem of the Jacobites on it….. The blurb paints the novel as a murder mystery, but the narrative has greater ambitions. At its heart is the agonising question of why the Jacobite cause, so passionately embraced, has not prevailed, and why the Highlands are still suffering the savagery of English redcoats.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. After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.