1869: 17-year-old Roderick ‘Roddy’ Macrae has just brutally murdered three people in the remote Scottish village of Culduie. He stands calmly in the road, covered in their blood, and informs his neighbours of what he has done. There is no question of his guilt. Roddy’s story unfolds amid the competing voices of his own prison memoir, court testimony, newspaper […]
Now that the official figure for unemployment has exceeded three million, is the Prime Minister proud of the fact that she has brought so much despair to so many families in the United Kingdom? Is she proud of the fact that she and the Government have created more havoc in the British economy than the […]
Guest reviewer, crime writer DOUGLAS SKELTON, discusses the latest thriller from MICHAEL J. MALONE. All families have secrets. Some are more deadly than others. In Michael J. Malone’s new book Beyond the Rage (Contraband, 2015), we find out more about Kenny O’Neill, the decidedly dodgy best friend of DI Ray McBain in both Blood Tears […]
The first anthology of Scottish LGBT writing in over 12 years, Out There (ed. Zoë Strachan, Freight 2014) brings together a series of bold and exciting dialogues on the sexual and cultural landscape of Scotland, cleverly hinged on the paradigm of ‘otherness’ that has been so central to the independence debate this year. It could not be […]
Manfred Baumann is an unassuming, middle-aged banker whose mundane existence is enlivened by his fantasies of Adèle Bedeau, the laconic waitress at his daily watering hole. A somewhat desolate figure who sits on the fringes of a small French community, Manfred’s quiet life is thrown into disarray when the object of his affection mysteriously vanishes, […]
Gone are the Leaves marks a bold departure from the Glaswegian sandwich bars, alcoholic fathers and painter-decorators that have populated Orange Prize-shortlisted author Anne Donovan’s previous novels. Set in an undefined medieval period (probably mid- or later thirteenth century, given the allusions to a brewing civil war in Scotland), it is a sweet tale of love that recalls the courtly […]
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