![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This manuscript, we are teasingly informed, divided the Edinburgh literati of the time, who feared a rerun of James Macpherson’s 18th-century literary hoax Ossian and considered it “quite inconceivable that a semi-literate peasant could produce such a sustained and eloquent piece of writing”. Subtitled “Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae”, His Bloody Project contains the 17-year-old crofter’s memoir, written while awaiting trial in Inverness in 1869 for three brutal murders, and “discovered” by the author while researching his own Highland roots. The book is also a blackly funny investigation into madness and motivation, which perhaps leads no further than one character’s grim conclusion: “One man can no more see into the mind of another than he can see inside a stone.” It’s a psychological thriller masquerading as a slice of true crime a collection of “found” documents that play lovingly with the traditions of Scottish literature an artful portrait of a remote crofting community in the 19th century that showcases contemporary theories about class and criminology. ![]() G raeme Macrae Burnet’s second novel from the crime imprint of the tiny Scottish publisher Saraband, a surprise inclusion on the Man Booker longlist, is a slippery creature indeed. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |