The Bookseller of Inverness by SG MacLean

Will Ye No Come Back Again?

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Six years after Culloden, Iain MacGillivray is running a bookshop and bindery in Inverness. ‘Out’ for Charles Edward Stuart, Prince or Young Pretender depending which side is naming him, Iain was badly wounded in the battle that brought the 1745 Jacobite rebellion to its bloody end, but he was luckier than the many hundreds of men who perished during the battle or in the reprisals that followed it. An uneasy peace reigns in the Highlands now, enforced by the red-coated soldiers of the ruling Hanoverian King. But Jacobite hopes are still simmering, and those loyal to the cause constantly await word from France where Prince Charlie and his father live in exile, ready to raise the clans and fight again. When Iain opens his bookshop one morning and finds a man there, murdered, the Jacobite symbol of the white cockade tied to the hilt of the dagger that killed him makes it clear that the death is in some way related to the cause. And then Hector, Iain’s father, turns up, fresh from France where he is an agent of the exiled King…

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 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.

SG (aka Shona) MacLean

The strength of the book is in the characterisation, especially of Iain but of all the other main characters too, and in the portrayal of the town and the historical setting. Iain’s grandmother is one of the “Grandes Dames”, a small group of old ladies who have lost husbands, brothers and sons in the earlier rebellions, but who still have absolute loyalty to the King Over the Water, and who provide the backbone that keeps the spirit of the cause strong even during these years of oppression. There are younger women too – Julia, a young lady of twenty-seven, whose mother is frantic to marry her off before she is irrevocably classed as a spinster; and Ishbel, one of the many Highlanders who were forcibly transported to America and the West Indies following the failed rebellion to serve as indentured servants – slaves, essentially, but with the possibility of freedom after serving for a period of years. Ishbel has now returned, accompanied by a mixed race child whom she is bringing up as her son, and who is an enjoyable and mischievous character in his own right. MacLean mentions in her notes that it was around this time that black people began to be mentioned in Scotland’s historical records, as Highlanders’ initially enforced connections with the slave-owning colonies were formed.

Hector is the most enjoyable character – a kind of adventurer, good-looking and charming and with an eye for the ladies, who have an eye for him too! Although he’s been an absent father for most of Iain’s life, they still have a strong bond of love, and Hector’s arrival stirs Iain back to life from the kind of dull stagnation he has felt since the defeat at Culloden. The latter stages of the book take on aspects of the thriller, and again MacLean handles this very well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one and found it a quick read which kept me turning those pages enthusiastically. I’m not sure whether there will be a follow up – it ends quite neatly – but if there is, I’ll certainly be reading it!

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus, via NetGalley.

Amazon UK Link

So sorry to have disappeared like that. One of the following is the reason for my absence:

1. I used my new time machine to travel back to the Chicago World Fair in 1893, and then it broke down. It’s not easy to get spare parts for a time machine in 1893.
2. As I was getting the porpy’s box ready for his hibernation, I inadvertently fell in, and have just woken up.
3. I was feeling blogged out and needed a break from staring at a screen.
4. I was swept up by aliens, who took me for a lovely ride in their balloon-shaped ship over North America when suddenly we were blasted out of the sky somewhere over Alaska. It’s a long walk home from Alaska to Kirkintilloch.