North Sea Requiem

July 8, 2013
What begins as a quiet domestic story deepens into a bloody examination of the effects of change on an insular culture in Scott’s fourth novel set in the 1950s Scottish Highlands (after 2012’s Beneath the Abbey Wall). The discovery of a man’s severed leg in a boot worn to play shinty, an ancient game that was the forerunner of ice hockey, and an attack on a local nurse come to the attention of the Highland Gazette staff, including reporter Joanne Ross and McAllister, the editor who has come to love her. Anonymous letters ratchet up the tension, and nobody knows what to make of the arrival of Mae Bell, an American singer seeking information about the death of her husband some years earlier. Meanwhile, feelings are ruthlessly suppressed and shame is endemic. When the festering resentments and anger boil over, the result is death, madness, and a horrifying loss of innocence. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media.

September 1, 2013

A local nurse finds a severed human foot inside a field hockey boot; then she is victimized by an acid-throwing attacker. Don't miss the fourth installment in Scott's Barry-nominated series (after Beneath the Abbey Wall) set in 1950s Scotland.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
It's 1958 in the Highlands of Scotland. A small weekly newspaper covers social events, animal sales, and sports. When the wife of the coach of a local shinty (the precursor of ice hockey) team finds a severed leg in the boot of one of the team uniforms she is cleaning, it's big news. When that same woman is disfigured in an acid attack, the incident crosses from grotesque prank to violent assault. The heroine of this series, Joanne Ross, is a woman who escaped an abusive husband, found a job as a typist at the paper, and now works as a full-fledged reporter for the Highland Gazette. Besides covering the ghastly news of the misplaced leg and the acid attack, Ross does some enterprising reporting on a glamorous American jazz singer searching for information on her husband, whose aircraft went down in the North Sea during WWII. This is not as spare and well crafted as the previous three mysteries in the series (too much information on nitpicking of children's heads, literally). But it's still an atmospheric mystery, with a wonderful, plucky reporter-heroine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)