The Bookseller of Inverness

S.G. MacLean

Hodder

Synopsis

A GRIPPING HISTORICAL THRILLER SET IN INVERNESS IN THE WAKE OF THE 1746 BATTLE OF CULLODEN.

‘This slice of historical fiction takes you on a wild ride’ THE TIMES

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.

Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he’s searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night.

The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him – a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites. With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for – and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.

About the Author

S.G. (Shona) MacLean was born and brought up in the Scottish Highlands where her parents were hoteliers. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Aberdeen. She is the author of both the Alexander Seaton and the Damian Seeker series of historical mysteries, twice winning the CWA Historical Dagger for the latter. Her standalone Jacobite thriller, The Bookseller of Inverness, was chosen as Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year 2023. S.G. MacLean’s MOTIVE appearance is generously supported by Scottish Books International.

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