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A Double Death on the Black Isle

A Novel

About The Book

Two Women, Two Murders . . .

A stunning and suspenseful story of families, betrayal, and a community divided.

Nothing is ever quite at peace on Scotland’s Black Isle—the Traveling people are forever at odds with the locals, the fishermen have nothing in common with the farmers, and the villages have no connection with the town. But when two deaths occur on the same day, involving the same families from the same estate—the Black Isle seems as forbidding as its name.

Joanne Ross, typist at the Highland Gazette, is torn whether to take on the plum task of reporting on these murders—after all, the woman at the center of both crimes is one of her closest friends. Joanne knows the story could be her big break, and for a woman in the mid-1950s—a single mother, no less—good work is hard to come by.

But the investigation by the staff on the Gazette reveals secrets that will forever change this quiet, remote part of the Highlands. The ancient feudal order is crumbling, loyalties are tested, friendships torn apart, and the sublime beauty of the landscape will never seem peaceful again.

Excerpt

Double Death on the Black Isle ONE


Cycling across the suspension bridge over the wide, fast-flowing river Joanne Ross glanced down—no, no bodies. She looked up at the pink-red castle filling the skyline and the town circling around it—no, no ambulances, no fire engines, no accidents. On the last few panting yards up the cobbled steepness of Castle Wynd she looked towards the police station and courthouse, hoping for anyone, anything of interest. Then she caught herself.

What are you? Some kind of ghoul? Wishing for death and drama so you can have a scoop on the front page of the Gazette? So you can impress your editor? So you can be somebody?

It was Tuesday, the day before deadline on the Highland Gazette, and the weekly anxiety was always the same: Would it be the same roundup of the same stories of the same place and people, with only the date changed? Or would a real news story break in time for deadline?

Joanne arrived in the office before the others—as usual. She wriggled onto the high chair; pushed her thick, nut-brown hair behind her ears; rolled a small piece of copy paper into a huge typewriter; flexed her fingers, readying herself for the battle with words and machine.

Rob McLean, the other reporter on the Gazette, clattered through the door in an icy mist of semi-arctic air. It was April and despite the calendar and the daffodils and the spring blossoms, winter had yet to leave.

He threw his scarf on the desk; Joanne threw it back at him. Keeping his motorbike jacket on, he parked himself on the desk.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“Probably trying to find something of interest for the front page,” Joanne replied. “As should you be. Deadline? Tomorrow afternoon? Same as every week? Remember?”

He looked down at her green-eyed brightness, “Aye, I remember.”

They grinned at each other and Joanne was reminded why Rob was her friend.

When she first met the self-styled star reporter, just out of his teens, ten years her junior, darling of girls ages three to one hundred and three, the only son of one of the most illustrious solicitors in the county, her initial reaction was distrust; men who were this good-looking—men with wheat-colored hair and startling blue eyes and a wonderful, cheeky grin—should be untrustworthy. Or so she had believed until she became friends with Rob McLean.

The telephone rang. Rob leaned across the reporters’ table and grabbed the receiver.

“Highland Gazette.”

“There’s a fishing boat on fire in the canal! Right next to the bonded warehouses. Maybe the whisky will explode!”

“Really? Can I have your name?”

“It’s me, Rob, Hector.”

“Not you!” Rob’s groan made Joanne stop typing and listen.

“Suit yerself. I’m away to take more photos.”

“Can whisky explode?” Rob spoke into a dead receiver.

“There’s a boat on fire down by the whisky warehouses.” He jumped off the table. “See you later.” He was out the reporters’ room like a rabbit with a ferret on its tail.

Joanne thought for all of two seconds. “Wait for me.” Three steps behind, she raced down the stone stairway.

“I’ve a feeling this is the front page,” Rob said as he bumped the motorbike off the pavement.

“You’ll be more unbearable than usual if you’re right.”

My mother-in-law can tut all she likes, but thank goodness I’m wearing trousers, Joanne thought as she swung onto the back of Rob’s bike.

Before she had a chance to button her coat, they were off in a red streak down towards the river, across the bridge, off to investigate the fire. Rob’s overlong, straw-yellow hair caught her in the eye and the straight stretch of road—like any other road leading out of any other town, bleak, mean, and littered—went by in a blur. They flew past a school, a long row of grey council houses, past the Caledonian football grounds, up the slight rise to the canal, coming to a halt in the queue of traffic held up by the half-raised, articulated bridge. It had opened to allow the boat to pass through to the flight of locks to begin the slow, spectacular process of being lifted from sea level to the much higher canal to continue the journey to Loch Ness and beyond.

Three cars, one lorry, and two cyclists were waiting on the town side. More vehicles were queued up on the opposite side of the canal. A small group of spectators were chattering away, excited by the fire. Clouds of thick, black, oily, acrid smoke blew hither and yon, fanned by a capricious North Sea wind, blotting out the distant hills and mountains. The fishing boat was well alight.

Joanne glanced towards the canal locks. She looked quickly away. The memory of the small boy found murdered there last year made her desperately sad; the memories of the suspicion that stalked the town, of the betrayals, and most of all of her own guilt, still hurt.

I believed the word of a monster. I chose not to believe the obvious. Never again will I close my eyes and ears, and ignore my children’s stories simply because they are children.

In spite of being a single mother escaping from a violent marriage, Joanne Ross was determined never to repeat her loveless childhood with her girls.

A waft of smoke enveloped her, breaking her reverie. She started to cough. The smell irritated her nostrils; a cloying mix of burning rubber and incinerated herring, it would take days to get out of her clothes and hair and put her off fish for a good while.

A scurry of firemen were scrambling about, shouting, dragging hoses, trying to find a way to reach the drifting boat, all the while knowing it was a lost cause: the herring smack was as ablaze as a sacrificial Viking longboat at Up Helly Aa.

“Look at that!” Rob elbowed Joanne, mesmerized by the frantic scene below.

They watched the uniformed figures dancing along the towpath, their cries and shouts borne in the wind like the cries of squabbling seagulls. Two firemen were pulling a reluctant hose, another dropped a hand pump into the canal, others were using long pikestaffs to stop the boat from drifting and at the same time keep it away from shore, away from the bonded warehouse holding a good portion of the whisky of the Highlands of Scotland.

The canal basin was mirror-still, making a double image of the fire and the centuries-old, stone buildings along the towpath. At the far end of the tongue-shaped waters, she could see the Black Isle crisp and clear, its lower slopes delineated in violent yellow gorse. With the distant hills, the topmost snowy tip of Ben Wyvis, and infinite blue sky, the setting was so picturesque that the oily smoke belching from the fire seemed a desecration.

The harbormaster stood rubbing the top of his head in frustration, unable to do anything about the disaster jamming up his precious canal and preventing the bridge from being lowered. His shouts at no one in particular were completely ignored.

Spectators from the neighboring village of Clachnaharry, the site of one of the many mostly forgotten battles in Scottish history, gathered on the opposite bank of the canal. The spectacular inferno set them hooting and skirling like Saturday-matinee Red Indians, the cries even louder as a bright burst of flame shot up, sending showers of sparks heavenward.

In the midst of the mayhem, Hector Bain, camera wielded like a weapon, was taking pictures. In and out of the crowd he ducked, stopping still for a second to take a shot, darting off for a different angle, feverishly trying to round up some of the firemen for a better composition, working the scene like a border collie with a panicked flock of sheep.

It took Joanne a moment to realize that this multi-colored miniature of a person with two cameras and what looked like his schoolbag round his neck was not an orange-haired troll. It took the morning for her to realize that Hector Bain was Rob McLean’s nemesis.

“Let’s get closer.” Rob was off.

Joanne needed no encouragement. There was something elemental about a fire. They hurried down the towpath to join the mêlée. The massive iron gates that guarded the warehouses and guarded the bonded whisky for the taxman were open for once. As they got nearer it was obvious the boat was doomed. The bridge and wheelhouse were gutted, the engine room well ablaze. Joanne spluttered. Another gust sent a swirling stinking black cloud of fumes in their direction. Her eyes watered, her nose now hurt.

“Over there!” Rob pointed and grabbed Joanne’s arm. They made for the lee of one of the bond warehouses where Hector, or Wee Hec as he was usually known, was winding on a new roll of film. Then, eyes focused like a bird of prey, he popped out, took a series of quick shots with his second camera, stopped, surveyed the scene, and, absolutely sure of his judgment, crouched down and shot another series from a different angle.

A dull whoomf, more an implosion than an explosion, then a shout of “she’s going down” brought an anguished cry from a fisherman standing on the edge of the towpath, oilskin leggings and wellie boots streaked with oil, face blackened with soot, his hair singed.

“This your boat then?” Rob asked going over to him.

“Get lost!” the man snarled.

“I’m from the Gazette. I just want to ask . . .”

Hector swung his camera towards the fisherman, clicking furiously. Two others from the crew, young lads, were coming up fast behind their mate. The three, legs akimbo, stood in a menacing line. Rob backed away, hands up.

“Okay, lads. Okay. I can see now’s not the time. Maybe later, aye?”

He went to step forward, to offer a cigarette, but the skipper was after Hec.

“Get that bloody camera out o’ ma face.”

Wee Hec stepped behind Joanne, trying his best to hide. The man reached around her, snatching at the precious Leica camera.

“Leave him be.” Joanne tried smiling.

Too late. The fisherman had Hector by his Clachnacuddin supporter’s scarf. Joanne kicked Hec’s assailant hard in the ankle. He let go and turned on her, more in surprise than in anger.

“Give him the film, Hec,” Rob shouted.

The man stopped.

“You only need the film, not his camera.” Rob was holding his hands up, attempting to placate the fisherman.

“I’m no giving up ma film.” Hec was trying to hide the camera inside his duffel coat.

“Then you’ll no mind your nosy friend getting a dooking.” The man was on Rob in an instant.

“Give him the film, Hec. Give him the film.”

No chance. A huge shove, a yell, a splash, and Rob was in the canal. It was deep even at the edge, but his leather jacket, his pride and joy, was soaking up the water, pulling him down. His waterlogged bike boots didn’t help. And to crown it all, Hec whipped out his camera and started taking pictures of the floundering reporter.

Hearing the clicks, the man turned back towards Hector. Joanne moved fast. Later, she and the skipper were to wonder where her strength came from. Straight at him, the high kick landed right in the stomach. With a loud “ooof,” he doubled up, more winded that hurt, more surprised than angry. And Wee Hec was gone, running up the path, his stubby legs pumping, his coat flapping, running towards the firemen and the shelter of the shiny red engine.

“Never. You didn’t.”

McAllister interjected at all the appropriate moments. Encouraging. Amazed. Amused. Trying hard not to laugh. The editor-in-chief of the Highland Gazette more than admired Joanne, and he loved the way she told a story with her face, her whole body describing the action.

“Where did you learn to defend yourself like that?”

My marriage, she thought. “In the ATS during the war,” she said.

She could never explain that she had joined the women’s army to escape her mother, only to become trapped by a husband.

“But go easy on Rob will you?” she asked.

“Well it’s not every day you get rescued by a lassie.”

“That’s what I mean.”

Joanne looked at McAllister. She saw a resemblance to a bust of a French philosopher; she noticed the touch of grey at the temples and thought, not for the first time, what an interesting face.

“Half-drowned by some fishermen. Rescued by a lassie. Pulled out by the Fire Brigade . . . I’ve half a mind to print the account.”

“Don’t you dare! Rob would never forgive me for telling you.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to restrain myself.” He smiled. “But what was all that about? Not just an accidental fire, you said.”

“No, no accident according to the firemen.”

McAllister leaned back in his chair; Joanne opened her notebook and explained.

She had been at the fire station for the previous hour, talking with the chief fireman and some of the crew.

The firemen cheered Joanne when she walked in. They’d seen the fracas with the skipper, watched as he tried to get his breath back—not injured but severely embarrassed. Now, as they were cleaning and stowing their equipment, the men were quite happy to talk to her—along with some teasing.

Not that Joanne told McAllister this. What happened, no one knew for certain, she told the editor, but these men are professional firemen, they know their business. Two of them had been in the worst fires of the war—in the Clydeside blitz.

“It was what we call an ‘incendiary device,’” one fireman told her.

“Any clearer than that?” Joanne had asked.

“A petrol bomb in a milk bottle to you, dear,” an older crewmember said, and he knew a thing or two about those weapons. He had been a member of the Billy Boys gang in Glasgow in his youth.

“Do the police agree?”

“The police take their report from us and we know our business.”

“Of course.” Joanne flushed slightly, not meaning to question their professionalism. Looking around her, seeing the men, the machines, the efficiency with which they treated their equipment, she knew that if the firemen said it was a petrol bomb that had started the fire, a petrol bomb it was.

McAllister heard Joanne out. “So, a Molotov cocktail, eh? The anarchist’s favorite weapon.”

“I bow to your extensive experience in those sort of things.”

“Aye.” He shook his head and sighed. “I’ve seen the damage a simple Molotov cocktail can cause. It was a favorite of the International Brigade in Spain. But not very usual in these parts.” He thought about it for a moment. “Anything more?”

“It became a bit scary towards the end,” Joanne replied. “I know the skipper was distraught about losing his boat, but why so angry over a few pictures? And why would someone burn down a herring boat? Another thing, the boat is from the Black Isle, the skipper too, so the harbormaster said. So why were they going through the canal, all the way through the Great Glen to Fort William, with a full hold of fresh herring?”

“Why not to her home port you mean?”

“Exactly. And then there’s the mystery of the crewmen, they’re from the Isles.”

As McAllister was listening to Joanne, as the different strands of the story mounted, his night-dark eyebrows, the only part of him that betrayed his thinking, rose or wriggled with each complication.

“Why does a local skipper have strangers for a crew?” she asked.

His eyebrows signaled, “Why?”

“Fishing boat crews are like families. So if they’re not family members, it’s usually men from the same home port. The skipper on this vessel—The Good Shepphard—is from the Black Isle; the crewmen, they’re not even from the east coast—they spoke Gaelic.”

When she finished, McAllister looked at his scrawled notes and saw how much information she had collected in only a few hours. For a woman who had been the typist on the newspaper not three months since, she’s come a long way.

“This is a great front-page story. Let me have your article by the end of the day.”

“Me?” Joanne stared at him. “But I’m new in the job. I’ve never done a major story.”

“I’ve been waiting weeks to launch the newly designed Gazette, you know that.” He pointed at the notes he had made. “This is the best news story we’ve had in a long while—it’s dramatic, mysterious.”

Joanne looked down at her hands, nervous, excited, trying hard not to blush. I’m too old to blush, she told herself, “I’ll do my best,” she told the editor.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you were up to it,” McAllister was impatient with Joanne’s lack of self-belief, “and don’t forget, with Don McLeod as subeditor, most of what you think is your best writing will be cut by that ruthless red pencil of his. So, get the sequence clear in your head, then don’t think too much, just write.”

As Joanne left the editor’s office to cross the four steps to the reporters’ room, she hugged herself.

“My first real story,” she muttered, “my first front page.”



Hector Bain, part boy, part man, part troglodyte, with a more than passing resemblance to Oor Wullie, that well-loved cartoon character from a Scottish Sunday newspaper, trudged through the promise of a spring morning. In a land where winter was said to reign for eight and a half months of the year, brisk would best describe the weather.

Such an innocuous word, “weather,” a word that only a native of the Highlands would use to describe the cloud-scudding, bone-crushing, ear-piercing, gusty wind that blew straight from the North Sea, down the Firth, down the Great Glen, over a succession of lochs, where it met the gales of another wind that arrived, unencumbered, three thousand miles from the wastes of Labrador. Locals would call these half hourly blasts of horizontal rain “showers” and outsiders would describe them as a “deluge.”

Not that Hector noticed. Trotting through the town, smiling at acquaintances, grinning at contemporaries, answering inquiries about the health of his granny with, “She’s great,” or, “She’s brilliant,” or, “She’s grand, thanks,” up the steep cobbled wynd that clung to the lee of the castle, head down and coat held tight to protect his precious cameras. A right turn—he arrived at his destiny. Only the semi-spiral stone staircase in the tall, narrow building to climb and he would be there in the sacred lair, there in the reporter’s room, the heartbeat of the Highland Gazette.

“Cripes, it’s Oor Wullie!” Don McLeod said.

“No it’s not. It’s a gnome from my mother-in-law’s rockery.” This came from Joanne.

“You’re both wrong. It’s Horrible Hector,” Rob declared with an uncharacteristic scowl. Addressing the cocky figure standing expectantly in the doorway he asked, “So, Wee Hec, what the heck are you doing here?”

The apparition stepped into the room proper.

“Hiya Rob. What like?”

At five foot two inches short, wearing clothes for an eleven-year-old and with two cameras round his neck, he looked like a wee boy dressed up as a photographer for Halloween. But the cameras round his neck were serious. Together, their net worth would buy a motorcar.

His red, sticking-up hair and his turnip lantern grin gave Don the Oor Wullie joke, but, so far as anyone knew, the cartoon character didn’t have the orange freckles with matching sodium light hair.

Joanne’s guess at garden gnome came from the lime green knitted woolen tourie—far too big for Hector’s head and weighted down to one side by an enormous bobble. A black and white Clachnacuddin Football Club supporter’s scarf completed the outfit. Hat and scarf had been knitted by his granny who could never find her glasses, and it showed.

Still grinning at the threesome sitting around the reporters’ table, Hec waited. When it became obvious that neither Don nor Rob were going to introduce him, Joanne spoke.

“We weren’t formally introduced yesterday. I’m Joanne Ross, I’m a reporter here. This is Don McLeod, deputy editor. You know Rob.”

“I know.” Hector continued grinning until Joanne decided this was the natural state of his face.

“So,” Joanne asked since her colleagues continued to ignore the apparition, “what can I do for you?”

“It’s more a case of what I can do for you, Joanne.”

“Mrs. Ross to you, boy,” Don growled at the newcomer.

“Here’s ma card.”

He handed the offering to Joanne. She peered at a hand-cut, hand-printed rectangle of cardboard the color of spam.

“Hector Bain. Photographer. The Highland Gazette.”

Rob reached over the shared desk and snatched the card from her.

“Did you use your wee sister’s printing set?”

Highland Gazette? What’s this about?” Don’s frown made the lines on his fifty-maybe-sixty-something-old face resemble a relief map of his native Skye.

“Morning. I see you’ve met our new photographer.” McAllister stood in the doorway, enjoying the consternation.

“Him? We’re to work with him?” Rob poked a finger at Hector.

“I’ve heard of some daft things in my time, but this takes the biscuit,” Don McLeod told the editor.

McAllister shrugged. “You asked for a photographer. I got you a photographer.”

“Aye, but what else is he besides?” Don replied. “I know you’re keen to get the new Gazette launched, and yes we’re desperate for a photographer, but not that desperate.” He narrowed his eyes, squinting through the smoke of his fifth cigarette of the morning, which dangled from a corner of his mouth.

McAllister checked the clock. “Let’s get on, we’ve a paper to publish.”

Don spread the new-look layout over the High Table, his blasphemous term for the square table used by the reporters. Five large typewriters took up one end and the layout filled the other. The gap between table and walls made a passage just wide enough for two to pass if they were good friends.

Joanne leaned over and took a look. “Don, you’re an artist!” she exclaimed.

“Oh my, Mr. McLeod, this is wonderful.” Mrs. Smart, the office manager, had come in and was looking over Joanne’s shoulder.

“It’s certainly different,” Rob contributed.

“Not bad at all,” was McAllister’s opinion.

Don McLeod’s chest swelled like a wee bantam cock about to chase the chickens. He opened his mouth to explain more, stopped, stared, looked at the gangling figure in the doorway—six foot three would be Don’s guess—and said, “Dr. Livingston, I presume.”

It was the nut-brown face and the plus fours and the tweed deerstalker hat, which could have easily been a pith helmet, that made Don think of the legendary explorer.

“Mortimer Beauchamp Carlyle, actually. But please call me Beech. Everyone does. How do you do?”

“Fine, thanks,” an awestruck Rob replied.

And like a character out of a Boy’s Own Adventure novel, darkest Africa chapter, the gentleman stuck out his hand. Rob took it and immediately, in spite of at least fifty years between them, they became fast friends.

“Beech will be writing our new Countryside column,” McAllister explained.

“Oh really? And who’s doing Town?” Rob had meant this as a facetious remark and nearly fell off his stool at the answer.

“Your mother.”

This time McAllister had consulted his deputy and Don had agreed with him. Margaret McLean was as well informed about goings-on in the town as Don McLeod, but in an entirely different social strata. Birdlife and nature, on the other hand, meant nothing to Don—nor to most of their readers. Don cared little about farming practices, but anything that stirred up the farming gentry was fine by him. The final argument on the hiring, McAllister wanted kept secret. But Don knew. Beech was on the board of guardians, that obscure body that oversaw the finances of the newspaper for the investors.

“ ‘Town and Country!’ ‘McAllister’s Mischief,’ that’s what it should be called,” Don was to remark later over his usual pint and a half. And as usual, he was not wrong.

With Don McLeod as deputy editor and chief subeditor; Joanne Ross and Rob McLean on reporting duties; Hector Bain the photographer; McAllister the editor-in-chief, writing the leader and obituaries; and Mrs. Smart overseeing the finances, they were all set to revamp a newspaper essentially unchanged since 1867.

Later that afternoon McAllister was sorting through the photographs of the fire. They were spectacular. He finally chose one showing flames shooting up through the decking, an oily black cloud of smoke ascending towards heaven, the name of the boat, The Good Shepphard, clear, the whole disaster showing in duplicate on the flat-calm waters of the canal basin. And in silhouette, to one side of the picture, his body conveying his anguish, was the skipper—Alexander Skinner of the Black Isle.

“Great front page for the new Highland Gazette,” McAllister murmured, happy at last. “Let’s hope this story runs for weeks.”

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for A Double Death on the Black Isle includes discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author A.D. Scott. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.


Topics and Questions for Discussion


1. Joanne and Patricia’s friendship is based on their shared history, but no longer translates as clearly to their present. Look closely at their interactions. How does their relationship evolve over the course of the novel? What moments in the text serve as particular turning points?

2. Were you familiar with the Tinkers (or Travelers) before reading this novel? Are there other minority groups that you find them similar to?

3. Rob is offered a job at the bigger, fancier newspaper in Aberdeen, but he decides to stay at the Highland Gazette. Did you agree with his decision?

4. As Rob thinks through Joanne’s excuses for her bruises, he hits upon the truth: “Joanne, it’s simple. Take him to court, have him locked away. And to his almost twenty-year-old thinking, it was that simple.”  To the narrator and Joanne herself, however, it clearly isn’t. What do you think?

5. Family loyalty is critically important in this novel. Discuss the instances in which the actions or decisions of various characters are directly tied to a desire to protect their relatives or family name. Did you think that the lengths these individuals went to were always justified?

6. Joanne is suffering through another sleepless night when it occurs to her: “I can’t go on like this. I am allowing Bill to win. I will no longer let him win. ” In what ways does Joanne change her behavior after this moment in the text?

 

7. Compare Mrs. Munro and Joanne, and the relationship that each woman shares with Patricia. In what ways are they similar, and in what ways are they different?

8. Place is a very significant concept within the novel and is tied very closely to character. Scott writes: “The Black Isle . . . was an island of the mind rather than geography. ” What is she saying here about both the physical characteristics of the Scottish Highlands and about the people who inhabit it?

9. Joanne recognizes in herself “that trait that seemed to be one of mothers and women in general, that catch-all phrase used when help was offered—I can manage. Yes she could manage, but only by being first in, last out. ” Though much has changed for working women since the 1950s, do you think that this has?

10. There are multiple mother-daughter relationships depicted in the novel, and while some are quite loving, others are more fraught. What is the role of the mother in this book and in the society that Scott portrays? Consider both birth mothers and those women who serve as mother figures for those who are not their biological children.

11. Hector’s photographs are an important aspect of the revamped Highland Gazette. Consider the role that the written word plays in the novel in comparison to the photographic image. How does each help tell the stories behind the novel’s unsolved mysteries?

12. In one of their candid conversations, McAllister says to Joanne, “It’s the nature of the job . . . we are part of the town but apart. ” What does he mean by this? Do you think this statement applies to all journalists?

13. Scott depicts domestic interiors with great detail. Find the moments in the text when we are taken inside a character’s home. What do we learn about their personalities from the descriptions of their space?

14. In their last exchange, Patricia says to Joanne, “Whatever happened to Sandy Skinner was an accident and I really don’t care if you believe me or not. ” What do you think happened? Do you believe Patricia?

 
Enhance Your Book Club

1. If you haven't read A Small Death in the Great Glen, consider reading it on your own or as a group. You might also consider how your reading experience is affected by thinking of a book as a sequel or prequel.

2. Reread the May Day scene. Consider researching May Day rituals from other cultures or sharing with the group another memorable holiday ritual that you recall from your childhood.

3. Imagine that you are casting the film version of A Double Death on the Black Isle. Who do you imagine playing the novel’s main characters?

A Conversation with A.D Scott


This is your second novel. How did your writing process for this book compare to that of A Small Death in the Great Glen? Was one more of a challenge than the other?

Writing this novel was difficult for a number of reasons but mostly because with a second book, there are expectations—expectation (mostly self-imposed) that the book will be to the standard and hopefully better than the first. Musicians call it “the second album syndrome”—I now know what they mean!

How did your experience working at a newspaper inform your descriptions of life at the Highland Gazette?

I worked on a local newspaper for a year but as an advertising manager, so Mrs. Smart, the business manager of the Gazette, has all my sympathies. Also the paper where I worked was using an old printing press and so I was able to see the physical process of typesetting. “Putting the paper to bed” once a week was a real adrenaline high. That and the sense that the whole community feels they own their local paper is what I gleaned most from working on a small town weekly newspaper.

 

Were you already thinking about the plot of A Double Death on the Black Isle as you were writing A Small Death in the Great Glen?

The plots of the first three books in the Highland Gazette series were worked out from the beginning. I knew right from the start how the central characters and the fate of the Highland Gazette would progress but in very broad terms. Alongside the development of the paper I also wanted to show the progression of the decade (the 1950s) as it moved on from wartime towards a new society. What I didn’t know were the many characters outside of the Gazette that I would meet along the way.

Which of the new characters in this novel most intrigued you, and why?

Patricia Ord Mackenzie of course! Even now, I don’t know her and am still intrigued by her. I feel that if I met her I would like her yet at the same time be slightly intimidated. Believe me, there are many of her ilk still living on country estates throughout the UK. Yes, the class system is alive and well.

Spatial relationships and positions are very important in this novel—where the Devil’s Den is located in relation to the Munro farmhouse; where the Dores Inn is located in relation to the Falls of Foyers, etc. How do you keep it all straight when you’re writing? Do you create maps?

First, this is my home. This area is where I was born and brought up. We used to holiday on the Black Isle and I couldn’t count the times we crossed over on the ferry, the old Eilean Dubh (Gaelic for Black Isle). I married on the Black Isle, had children, and my son went to a local one teacher school there. But, as an aide-memoire, I have an original and very detailed map of the area printed in 1954. The map has great detail and the topography is shaded in beautiful colors.

Of all of these characters, whose voice comes to you the most naturally? Whose requires the most crafting?

Hmmm, that’s a tough question. I find it most difficult to write Joanne as I too want to shake her and say, “Have more confidence in yourself!” But the most naturally? That’s easy. Don MacLeod. I want a best friend just like him.

Tell us about your inspiration for the May Day scene. Was this a ritual you ever took part in as a child?

Yes, it is—in parts. My mother and my grandmother had so many superstitions and rituals that, as a child, it never occurred to me that not everyone saw fairies and bogymen and ghosts. It never occurred to me that standing stones were unusual, that not everywhere were there castles and ruins and fairy wells. The May Day ritual of washing your face in the morning dew was fun. Hanging a cloth at the Clootie Well was fun. Picnicking at the stone circle of Clava was fun but creepy, too. It is a strange place indeed.
 

There is such electricity between Joanne and McAllister! Will it ever be realized?

Wait and see!

Issues of class are very important within the novel. For those readers who might not be familiar with Scottish history and culture, can you give us some background on what the socioeconomic structures of Scotland looked like in the 1950s?

It would take a huge volume to explain that. Back then, everyone knew their place, “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. ”

One thing we have lost is the pride and status the working man had in his employment. If you worked on the railways, for the Postal Office, or on the farm, there was a pride in those essential jobs that seems to have disappeared. As for the Lairds, very few of them left too. Nowadays, the estates are mostly owned by insurance companies or rich people from Europe.

In one particularly evocative passage, McAllister thinks to himself, “The lochs, trapped in the long narrow glen by bleak and beautiful mountains, ended in an equally grand manner on the west coast. They could not be seen, but their presence, their geography, made the town what it is. And the people what they are. ” Can you elaborate further on this idea? Do you think every person’s character is influenced by the physical landscape that surrounds them, or is there something unique to the influence of the Scottish Highlands?

I absolutely believe we are shaped by the landscape of childhood. I believe that throughout our lives our physical environment influences us. But even in the bleakest of circumstances we can find inspiration be it in a flower, a cloud, a shaft of sunlight. As for the Scottish Highlanders, we are shockingly sentimental about our Highland home. The Bard Rabbie Burns put it best, “My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here . . . my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go. ”

About The Author

Photo by Etienne Bossot

A.D. Scott was born in the Highlands of Scotland and educated at Inverness Royal Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She has worked in theater and in magazines, and is currently writing the next book in the acclaimed Highland Gazette mystery series.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atria Books (September 27, 2011)
  • Length: 384 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781439154946

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Raves and Reviews

"Scott brilliantly evokes the life of a small Scottish town.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Scott’s writing is engaging, and her plotting Macbethian. The characters of the crusading small-town newspaper are skillfully drawn and will have readers rooting for them unequivocally.” —Booklist

"The characters are engaging, and the suspense mounts along with a growing sense of dread as events surrounding the death of a young boy unfold." —Peter Robinson

“This mystery is a delight to unravel, with its lively dialect-sprouting players, inhabiting a lavishly described, forbidding but beautiful landscape.” —Kirkus

“Oh, what a delight, this book! Almost perfect in every way.” —William Kent Krueger

"Brims with an intimate knowledge of the Scottish Highlands…a novel to savor.”" —Malla Nunn

"An impressive first novel…Scott uses the background of religious intolerance, prejudice and petty jealousies, to bring together an engaging cast of warm and colorful characters." —Ann Cleeves

“Readers…should enjoy Scott's careful attention to creating characters who convincingly belong to a past era's attitudes and values.” –Publishers Weekly

“Set against the bleak beauty of the Highlands, Scott’s second (A Small Death In a Great Glenn, 2010) continues to explore the slow transformation of Scotland from a highly ordered society while presenting a fine mystery with engaging characters." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Another stunner…Lots of action, lots of atmosphere, and above all, lots of fun.” —Booklist (starred)

“As patrician and working classes prepare to do battle, Scott’s well-written mystery is lyrical and arresting." —Curledup.com (blog)

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More books from this author: A. D. Scott

More books in this series: The Highland Gazette Mystery Series