UKC

Anyone else read this book by Graeme Macrae Burnett? I had a quick search but couldn't find it mentioned.

I'll not spoil the plot of a murder mystery for you, but since the book is set in a village on the western edge of the Applecross peninsula, I thought some of you might have picked it up. Surprisingly for a book whose characters didn't engage me and whose plot I thought a bit thin, which you'd imagine are both rather necessary things for a piece of crime fiction to make you read to the end, I not only finished it but the memory of what was described has stayed with me for a while.

Specifically, the book does a terrific job of conjuring up what life must have been like in a remote crofting community towards the end of the century before last. It's easy for us to look back with sepia-tinted imaginations and romanticise a view of what life might have been like in countryside we sometimes visit and hold dear the time we spend there, but this book does a fine job of blowing away all that nonsense. Really, we know life must have been hard; this book gives you a description that shows just how hard that might have been.

So I find myself in the rather curious position of recommending a book whose plot didn't really grab me and whose characters I didn't really find engaging, just because it conjures up a sense of time and place far better than I'd ever imagined it could.

Anyone else read it?

T.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:
I've read it. It was a strange mix. Some of it I found very compelling, and some seemed like it was trying to be a bit of a clever literary trick. I did find the characters engaging, but obviously not in any positive way - there were few likeable characters, but they were striking. As you say, the sense of time and place and life was very strong. Hard to believe that slavery - that's pretty much what it was - was still alive and kicking on the west coast so relatively recently.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

Not read and not really a fan of crime novels, but you make it sound quite tempting.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

Is it better than the Monty Halls one where he lives in a croft on the beach just north of Applecross, writes about the solitude and omits any reference to the stonking naval outpost a few hundred yards away?

In reply to tony:


Yes, an odd book (shortlisted for the Man-Booker) that starts out quite compellingly by promising an unusual courtroom acquittal drama in an atmospheric setting but you increasingly wonder how reliable the apparently highly credible witness really is. A horrible mixture of crushing poverty, parental abuse, teenage fecklessness, institutionalised feudal bullying, sexual frustration and multiple murder (probably) - what's not to like?

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

Quite enjoyed it, if that's the word. It's quite an unusual format - one that could only work once or twice I think. Anyone read the author's previous book? Trying to decide whether it's worth getting.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

I was very taken by this book. A compelling study of misery, back-breaking toil, hopeless love, and death. . .

. . . though I don't imagine that coachloads of readers will be descending on Culduie!

In reply to hokkyokusei:

It's maybe more of a courtroom drama than a whodunit. I think it's worth a read. It's very evocative and it does stay with you.