Books:

New Release
A Double Death on the Black Isle

Prejudice, class differences and murder meet on the
Black Isle.

In Scott's solid second suspense novel set in 1950s Scotland (after A Small Death in the Great Glen), Joanne Ross, newly promoted from typist to full-time reporter at the Highland Gazette, finds herself writing about two tragic stories connected to an old friend, Patricia Ord Mackenzie, who has alienated her upper-class family by marrying a fishing boat captain, Alexander "Sandy" Skinner. On the same day that Sandy plummets fatally over a waterfall, Fraser Munro, the rebellious adult son of Patricia's family servants, is found dead on a county road. Two teenage Travelers, a nomadic, discriminated-against group, are charged with manslaughter for Fraser's death, while Sandy's fall is quickly explained away as an accident. Readers willing to forgive slow pacing and some unresolved story points should enjoy Scott's careful attention to creating characters who convincingly belong to a past era's attitudes and values. (Sept.)

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Book one
A Small DEath in the Great Glen

Both probing character study and a driving novel of suspense, here is a novel that will linger in your mind like mist over the Scottish glens…

In the Highlands of 1950s Scotland, a boy is found dead in a canal lock. Two young girls tell such a fanciful story of his disappearance, no one believes them. The local newspaper staff--including Joanne Ross, the part-time typist embroiled in an abusive marriage, and her boss, a seasoned journalist determined to revamp the paper--set out to uncover and investigate the crime. Suspicion falls on several townspeople, all of whom profess their innocence. 


Alongside these characters are the people of the town and neighboring glens; a refugee Polish Count; an Italian family whose café boasts the first known cappuccino machine in the north of Scotland; and a corrupt Town Clerk subverting the planning laws to line his own pocket. Together, these very different Scots harbor deep and troubling secrets underneath their polished and respectable veneers--revelations that may prevent the crime from being solved and may keep the town firmly in the clutches of its shadowy past. 


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Book Two
Tales from the Highland Gazette

Hector Bain, part boy part man part troglodyte with a more than passing resemblance to a well-loved carton 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, one 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. The half-hourly blasts of horizontal rain, locals would call showers and outsiders would describe as a deluge.

Not that Hector noticed. Trotting through the town, smiling at acquaintances, grinning at contemporaries, answering the frequent enquiries about the health of his Granny with, she’s great, or, she’s brilliant, or, she’s grand thanks, up the steep cobbled Wynde that clung to the lee of the Castle, head down and coat held tight to protect his precious Leicas. A right turn, and 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!”

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

“You’re both wrong. It’s Horrible Hector.” Rob declared this with an uncharacteristic scowl, and 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 Hallow’een. 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 woolen hat - far too big for Hector’s head and weighted down to one side by an enormous bobble. A black and white Clachnacuddin supporter’s scarf completed the outfit; hat and scarf had been knitted by his Granny who could never find her glasses, and it showed.

But the cameras round his neck, they were serious. Both Leicas, together, their net worth was more than most cars. The rest of his equipment, the Hasselblad and printing equipment were in the dark room in Hector’s studio. He called it his studio but really it was the washhouse out the back of their 1930s council house, the double stone sinks being ideal for developing and printing his thousands of photographs.

Grinning at the threesome sat around the table, unable to speak for excitement, Hec waited. When it became obvious that neither Don nor Rob were going to introduce him, Joanne spoke.

“I’m Joanne Ross, I’m a reporter here. I take it you know Rob McLean chief reporter, and this is Don McLeod, deputy editor.”

“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, and read out the lettering.

“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 was furious.

“Morning. I see you’ve met our new photographer.”

McAllister stood in the doorway taking in the confusion and amazement.

“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 did ask for a photographer so 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 was waggling his head from side to side like a fairground dog. He lit the fifth cigarette of the day, and with it dangling from the corner of his mouth, the smoke curling upwards causing him to squint, he spread the lay-out over the High Table, his blasphemous term for the square table used by the reporters, where five large typewriters took up one end, the layout filled the other and the spaces between it and the walls made a passage just wide enough for two to pass if they were good friends.
“Right, let’s get on.”
The town clock, along with half a dozen church clocks, struck nine drowning out any reply. Don waved some sheets of copy and pointed at various blank spots on the dummy, his mouth opening like a gasping goldfish, his comments lost in the chiming of another set of bells.
Joanne leaned over the layout and took a look.
    “You are an artist!” she exclaimed.
    “Oh my, Mr. McLeod, this is wonderful.” Mrs. Smart the office manager had come in and looking over Joanne’s shoulder. She smiled in approval.
    “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 but again, just he opened his mouth to explain how the new layout would work, he stopped, stared, looked at the figure in the doorway and said, “Dr Livingston, I presume.”
    “Mortimer Beauchamp Carlyle actually. New member of the gang.”
    “How many more are there…” Rob started.
    “Please, call me Beech. Everyone does. How do you do?” 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 fifty years at least between them in age, they became fast friends.
“Beech will be writing our new monthly 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.”
At least this time McAllister had consulted his deputy. What’s more, Don had agreed with him. Margaret McLean was as well informed about goings-on in the town and county as Don McLeod – but in entirely different social strata. Birdlife and nature meant nothing to Don - nor to most of their readers. The shooting of golden eagles at lambing time was still popular, farmers were ripping out hedgerows, felling woodland and using DDT for everything that grew out of place; all practices anathema to Beech. But anything that stirred up the farming gentry was fine by Don. The final argument on the hiring, McAllister had 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.