The Trowie Mound Murders - Marsali Taylor

I had hoped I'd manage to write about this before I went on holiday, that at least was the plan but it didn't quite work out, I even took my laptop away with me along with good intentions to catch up on all manner of things. Happily it wouldn't work so instead I had a lazy holiday with lots of reading rather than mindless browsing on amazon and lost hours on twitter. 'The Trowie Mound Murders' have been another outing for my phone in kindle mode - it's an occasionally handy app but not a way of reading I particularly like - particularly now that I come to write about the book as the phone app isn't great for trying to find bits for reference. Price wise however the kindle option wins here (£2.49 as opposed to £12.99 and I know it shouldn't be about price but if you're looking to take a chance on a relatively unknown writer it helps - this is one you should take a chance on.)

As I mentioned in the last post Marsali used to teach me, it feels a little bit odd to be commenting about her writing - but I'm going to do it anyway. This is her second novel and the second to feature Cass Lynch as the heroine who isn't quite a detective, both are set in Shetland and have a nautical theme. The first book is Death on a Longhsip (also a kindle bargain) which both myself and D enjoyed though I would say that it does that first novel thing where everything gets thrown into it and some of it's a bit distracting from the action. In the best second book tradition 'The Trowie Mound Murders' improves on everything.

Cass is teaching local children to sail over the summer whilst she considers her options, the plan is to go to college in the autumn to get the qualification she needs to skipper tall ships but the idea of going back to school is rather daunting for a woman who's been footloose and fancy free for the last decade or more. Anders (the very attractive Norwegian) is still sharing her boat and the dust is generally settling after the events of the previous book. One evening a couple of yachts moor in the same marina and is as is the general way everyone falls into conversation. One of the couples don't seem to be quite legit, there are odd things about their boat and they ask a lot of questions without giving anything away about themselves, and then the other couple disappear in an odd way. Cass feels compelled to inform the coast guard and she also lets her old adversary DI Gavin Macrae know there's something odd afoot too. Gavin turns up post haste - he's another possible complication for Cass, there's a definite attraction between them but would he be another unwelcome tie to a land bound life?

Meanwhile all sorts of undercurrents are detectable behind the net curtains of Shetlands croft houses, there are hints of art theft, smuggling, drug trafficking , and a possible porn ring. In real life Shetland has a reassuringly low crime rate but the black fish scandal a couple of years ago suggests that a certain piratical Viking spirit is alive and thriving. There are a couple of dodgy local characters here and they feel absolutely authentic - there's a real sense of menace about these guys but it's nuanced too but then just generally I felt it all hung together really well. Cass calling the coastguard when she does is responsible behaviour, when she gets to close to the crime it's a feasible accident that she should do so, and a set piece where it looks like it might end very badly for her is truly chilling. And as for the murders, it was quite bad luck on the murderers part that they didn't get away with it - they almost could have...

Easily a character in it's own right is Shetland, it's landscape, sea ways, and history are integral to the plot as is it's language (there's a handy glossary at the back for dialect words) which really gives a sense of the place. I really like books with a strong sense of place so it's another element that scores for me here. On the basis of this I'm really excited about the next book, it's going to be fun seeing what Cass does next.

The Story of Busta House - Marsali Taylor

Busta house is apparently the oldest continually inhabited house in Shetland the original bits date from 1588 (but it has been much added to - a good portion of what you can see in the photograph is an extension from the 1980's after it became a hotel in the late 1970's) and in that time it's gathered a few peculiar stories (and some bomb damaged gargoyles from the house of commons).

The most peculiar story is the history of the Giffords of Busta, I've heard a few versions of the tale and even a suggestion that the Gifford case was a model for Jarndyce v Jarndyce. I was curious enough about a possible Dickens connection to follow that up but I think it's probably fantasy, though as the law suits dragged on through the courts for almost a century and ruined the estate it has a very Jarndycen feel to it, and even if Dickens didn't use the story Eric Linklater does in 'The Dark Of Summer'.

The rough bones of the tale are this... In the 1730's Busta belonged to Thomas and Eizabeth Gifford, Elizabeth was by all accounts a proud hard woman, and Thomas a ruthless man in business, he had the mortgage of a neighboring estate and seems to have blackmailed it's owner into handing over the property after he'd been heard expressing Jacobite sympathies. The dispossessed man took to visiting Busta at night to shout curses at Gifford, until he was found dead some miles away after one of these nocturnal visits in 1744. Thomas and Elizabeth had 14 children so the future of the family line looked secure but in 1740 the family was struck by smallpox and (if I count correctly) 5 of their children died. this still left 4 sons though and everything should have been fine but then one calm May evening in 1748 all 4 headed out in a boat with the younger boys tutor the Reverend John Fiskin, and a servant to visit family on the other side of the voe. They never returned. Next day a search party was sent out, the boat was found and eventually the body of John the eldest son dredged from the water and was taken back to Busta.

The Giffords had a house guest - Barbara Pitcairn, who had been living with them for over a year and at this point she announced that she was John's wife and pregnant. John Fiskin had performed the ceremony and 2 of the other brothers had been witnesses. In short there was nobody to back up Barbara's story - or deny it, and legend has it that Lady Busta nabbed the wedding lines and hid them, determined not to acknowledge Barbara as a daughter in law. Regardless of this Barbara's son Gideon Gifford was recognized by Thomas and Elizabeth as their heir and bought up by them - Barbara was sent packing and only saw her son once more in her lifetime. 

Gideon inherited the estate with the general consent of the family and everything seems to have gone well with the Giffords for some years, in the 1790's there were stories that the original marriage certificate had been found, but if it was, it was speedily lost again, and then possibly found and used to try and blackmail Gideon into giving up some property to his cousin. Nothing much came of it until the 1830's however when the next generation came to blows over who the estate should rightfully belong to - on and off the case lasted until 1925.

    

It's a great story, and though I must admit I like the more fanciful versions which come with various supernatural elements woven in (selkies, ghosts, and premonitions abound, as well as the curses showered on the house) the much more scholarly and factual 'The Story of Busta House' is a welcome addition to the mix. There are plenty of people with ghost stories about Busta, the assumption being that it's Barbara Pitcairn who haunts the place, but as most the odd occurrences seem to take place in the part of the house built in the 1980's I find it easy to be rational about them. Of the two women central to the story I don't know whether to pity Barbara, who may have lost her husband and who gave up her son, or Elizabeth who outlived 13 of her 14 children more. What I can say for sure is that Busta house hotel does a great fish and chips at lunch time and has a fabulous whisky list.   

Death On A Longship - Marsali Taylor

My stock of prohibition era American novels has all but run out leaving me a little bit bereft, so it was a timely visit from the postman when he dropped off a parcel containing 'Death On A Longship' which I've been anticipating for a while and which has broken my gangster obsession.

Marsali Taylor was my English teacher in junior high school, she also taught us French, Drama, and was the woman responsible for my Georgette Heyer habit. I had absolutely no aptitude for French despite her best efforts but she had a definite - and much more effective - influence on my reading life so it's really interesting to see what her own book is like. 

This is also only the second time I've had my hands on a novel written by somebody I know and it definitely has an effect on how I approach a book - I find it makes me much more critical, there's also a nagging fear that I won't like what I have in front of me and whilst with most books that's not something I worry about this time I really wanted to enjoy it. Happily for me I did which makes writing this blog a whole lot easier.

As the title suggests 'Death On A Longship' is a murder mystery, and as it's the first in a series I'll start with the heroine. Cass Lynch is almost 30 and sailing obsessed. She ran away to see at the age of 16 and has never really looked back. Originally from Shetland a job skippering a replica Viking longship for a film crew takes her back home for the first time in almost 15 years. There is a past to come to terms with so it's something of a fraught return further complicated by Cass's father having started a new relationship with a girl her own age who isn't necessarily delighted to have Cass back in the picture. Bridges are being built when Cass finds a corpse which at first she takes to be the girlfriend before realising it's her film star sister. Everything gets very personal very quickly and isn't looking good for Cass or her family.

Cass is an easy character to like. She's a sailing obsessed loner which means that she has to be resourceful, observant, well able to sum up a character that she might get stuck on a boat with, and cool in a crisis - all handy characteristics when you find yourself with a dead body at 4 in the morning. I liked that Cass is almost 30 - it feels like the right time for her to be building bridges between her past and possible future and the way that's done is a real strength in this book - as it's part of a series it'll also be really interesting to see how that develops.

Shetland is itself a significant character in the book. The landscape is always present and that's another thing I liked - books with a strong sense of place generally do appeal to me. There's also quite a bit about current local issues, especially wind farms, which made me wonder if they were going to feature in future books, it also makes me think as someone with local connections that it'll be interesting to come back to 'Death On A Longship' in a few years time and assess what's happened since. It's a very vivid snapshot of Island life as it is now.

The boats in the book are significant too, and rightly so. The Scottish one took me to Islay early in our relationship where quite by chance we saw Sea Stallion on  her way from Norway to Ireland. Watching that square sail on the horizon swept away a thousand years of history leaving stories about Viking invaders up-most in my mind, it was a real surprise when later in the day that's almost exactly what it turned out to be. Those boats invite stories in much the same way as haunted houses do - they just feel built for them.  

The murder mystery element is entirely satisfactory with a few twists along the way that kept me guessing as to who and why. There's only one victim which I also really approve of, I don't much care for a huge body count, this murder is made quite horrible enough by the realisation that a life has been taken for no good reason - always worth remembering when it comes to murder. 'Death On A Longship' has been published by @ttica, primarily I think as an ebook although hard copies are available here. I recommend it for anyone who likes an atmospheric, character based mystery - I'm already looking forward to the next in the series.  

Marsali will be doing a guest post here tomorrow with a chance to win prizes so please do come and have a look.