A Kind of Grief by A.D. Scott

First Line: She'd first visited the house up the isolated glen in Sutherland when she was a child.

Alice Ramsay is a talented artist who lives alone in a remote area of the northern Highlands of Scotland. She's unconventional, and although she doesn't go out of her way to attract attention, she has her own opinions and isn't afraid to voice them. This has created enemies for her in the nearby village, and the rumor mill insists that she's a witch.

When Alice is found dead in her home, the verdict is suicide, but Joanne Ross of the Highland Gazette won't have it. Too many things just don't add up-- like the art critic of rather dubious scruples who writes for a national newspaper... and those officials from some sort of secretive government agency who are also lurking about. They're enough to send shivers down anyone's spine. No. Alice Ramsay did not commit suicide, and Joanne Ross will not rest until she proves it.

I've been a fan of A.D. Scott's series since the very first book, A Small Death in the Great Glen. The setting of the Scottish Highlands in the 1950s is vivid, and a rock solid foundation for each book. 

The plot of A Kind of Grief was set in motion by the story of the last witch burned in Scotland. Alice Ramsay is the alleged witch here, and there are alternating sections of the book told in her voice. She's a strong, likable woman with secrets that Scott has readers itching to learn. And what better way to learn them than through the persistence of Joanne Ross, another unconventional woman who's had to fight to find her own path to happiness for herself and her children? Joanne is still recuperating from devastating injuries that occurred in a previous book, and Alice Ramsay strikes a chord with her. Joanne's interest soon turns into obsession, and with those government types lurking in the shadows, it's altogether too easy for readers to begin to fear for this vulnerable woman.

But it's not just shadowy agents and oily art critics who need to be feared. There's a small-minded, evil-tongued woman in Alice's village-- the dreaded Mrs. MacKenzie-- who's gone so far past the mere title of gossipmonger that it boggles the mind. Scott uses characters like MacKenzie to prove that danger can live in plain sight... right in our midst.

I love Scott's books for their setting and their complex stories, but it's her characters and her insight into human nature that make them dear to my heart. A Kind of Grief is another strong entry in this series, and I look forward to the next. A.D. Scott's writing reminds me a great deal of Louise Penny's, and I would urge Penny's fans to sample life in the Highlands. Scott's characters grow and change throughout the series, so I recommend starting at the beginning. You're in for a treat.

A Kind of Grief by A.D. Scott

eISBN: 9781476756196

Atria Books © 2015

eBook, 368 pages

Historical Mystery, #6 Highland Gazette mystery

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley 

The Low Road by A.D. Scott

First Line: He shuddered as he got off the bus outside the main gate of the former Duke Street Prison.

John McAllister has come to the mean streets of Glasgow on a mission to find his friend, Jimmy McPhee. McPhee has disappeared from sight, and since he is involved in some sort of blood feud with a gang there in the city, McAllister intends to use his old newspaper contacts to see if he can find his friend. 

Although he's ashamed to admit it, he's relieved to be back in Glasgow and feeling the allure of a big city newspaper. Joanne Ross, the woman he loves in Inverness, is still recuperating from serious injuries. She's not really the woman McAllister fell in love with... but he doesn't really want to think about that. Instead he teams up with a young crime reporter who has her eye on the Big Time. In trying to track down Jimmy, the gang finds them, and now McAllister is in danger of losing everything-- and everyone-- he loves.

Although I missed being in Inverness in this latest Highland Gazette mystery, I rapidly came to appreciate the visit to some of 1950s Glasgow's most dangerous areas.

It's also an opportunity to see McAllister on what used to be his home turf and to observe the way he behaves with family, friends, and former work colleagues. Moreover, what readers observe isn't always flattering. McAllister-- a lifelong bachelor and rather set in his ways-- is finding it very difficult to cope with the changes in Joanne Ross. Although he thought he loved her beyond all reason, the difficulties she's experiencing with her health have him wondering if they really should get married. For anyone who's followed this marvelous series since book one, his behavior is almost like a slap in the face. Granted, it's only natural for him to have these doubts-- and it shows how A.D. Scott has created nuanced characters who live and breathe on the pages of her books.

She also knows how to create a level of menace and danger that keeps your eyes glued to those pages. Although I truly feared for McAllister's life on more than one occasion, I still felt that The Low Road suffered a bit from the characters being split apart. This is such an ensemble cast that the flow of the book felt a bit out of kilter from time to time.

Scott gives us a real feel for Scotland in the 1950s by showing how some of the old-fashioned Calvinist ways are very gradually being ground under by modern ideas and behaviors. As in tune as she is with the land and the times, it's with her characters that A.D. Scott truly shines. These are characters who embrace both the good and the bad. We're able to learn their strengths, their weaknesses, and some of their motivations. There's a lyrical and oh-so-human quality to this author's writing that reminds me of Louise Penny, and-- as I am with Penny's books-- I'm always thrilled to see a new Highland Gazette mystery.

The Low Road by A.D. Scott

ISBN:  9781476756165

Atria Books © 2014

Paperback, 336 pages

Historical Mystery, #5 Highland Gazette mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Net Galley 

North Sea Requiem by A.D. Scott

First Line: Mrs. Frank Urquhart was dead set against the Sabbatarians.

If anyone had bothered asking her, she would have been dead set against finding a severed leg in the boot of one of the local shinty team players, too, but it's exactly what happened. That is headline news for the Highland Gazette in the small town of Inverness, Scotland in the 1950s.

Reporter Joanne Ross is looking for her own headline and thinks she's found it in American jazz singer Mae Bell, whose husband disappeared in his aircraft somewhere out at sea five years ago. Mae is in town looking for her husband's colleagues.

Members of the Highland Gazette staff begin receiving anonymous letters telling them to keep their noses out of other people's business. Then Nurse Urquhart is the victim of a brutal attack, and it's discovered that she and Mae Bell have also received the same sort of letters. What on earth is going on?

I've been a fan of A.D. Scott's series from the first book, A Small Death in the Great Glen. She very firmly places her readers in the middle of the Highlands of Scotland in the late 1950s, when there are more restrictions on behavior and what is "acceptable." Within that framework she places a cast of characters who do not fit in: a handsome young reporter who wants to go to the city to be a television star, a bachelor editor from Glasgow who loves a married woman, a female reporter who wants a divorce from her abusive husband so she can make a life for herself and her two daughters-- and an attractive, exotic American looking for men who knew her beloved husband.

The story slowly unfolds, and secrets are gradually uncovered amidst short, sharp bursts of violence that are all the more shocking for being in such a place and amongst characters as familiar to me as my own family. The books in this series can be read as standalones, but so much nuance will be lost that I don't recommend it. I often feel that Scott has a specific plan in mind for this series, and that the series in its entirety is really one complete work with each book a chapter within it. Bits and pieces are revealed about characters in one book and may not be picked up again until two more books have been published. Read with that in mind, I don't expect everything to be wrapped up in pretty little bows by each book's end. I am willing to let Scott work at her own pace.

The story in North Sea Requiem is a satisfying one, not only in terms of the mystery, but also in terms of the interaction between the characters. As I read the last few chapters, I knew that A.D. Scott's writing reminded me of another author. It wasn't until an hour or so after I'd finished (and was still savoring the story) that it dawned on me whom she reminded me of: Louise Penny. The similarities are not glaringly obvious, but they are there. A complex story being told in a series of books, characters who continuously evolve, and an underlying feeling of tenderness for a time, a place, and a people. Like Louise Penny, A.D. Scott simply cannot write fast enough for me.

North Sea Requiem by A.D. Scott

ISBN: 9781451665796

Atria Books © 2013

Paperback, 336 pages

Historical Mystery, #4 Highland Gazette mystery

Rating: A

Source: NetGalley 

Beneath the Abbey Wall by A.D. Scott

First Line: Ten past nine on a mid-September night, everything in the town was tight shut, including the sky. It must have known it was the Sabbath.

Much of the Highland Gazette's recent success has been due to the hard work and common sense of Mrs. Smart, so when she's found dead on a dark Inverness street, everyone on the newspaper staff is left reeling in shock. But that's not the end of it. As more information comes to light, it is learned that the dead woman's name wasn't Smart, she was married to the newspaper's editor, Don McLeod, and McLeod is soon hauled off to jail, accused of her murder. The Highland Gazette office is in chaos. A handsome stranger is brought in temporarily to help with advertising and accounts, and in the midst of all this, reporter Joanne Ross finds herself falling in love with him.

Once again A.D. Scott has worked her magic and drawn me into the world of Inverness, Scotland, in the late 1950s. Attitudes may be changing quickly elsewhere, but in this small Highland town, change doesn't come easily... or fast. The cast of characters fit this setting beautifully. McAllister, a newspaper man from Glasgow, wants to modernize the paper and make it a success. Reporter Joanne Ross has put an end to her abusive marriage. Hector Bain, staff photographer and "serial nuisance" may be a pain, but he's magic with a camera. Young Rob McLean is a gifted reporter who wouldn't mind making a name for himself in front of the camera. Of all the main characters there are only two readers have never learned much about: Don McLeod, the deputy editor, and Mrs. Smart, the office manager. This book centers on them-- the "old guard"-- and as it does, what appear to be inconsistencies begin to show in the story.

Scott reminds us that Inverness is a small town where everyone spends most of their time gossiping and learning everyone else's business. However, no one knew about the marriage between McLeod and Smart. Joanne Ross, whose personal life has already set fire to the local grapevine, falls in love with a stranger, has an affair with him, and her soon-to-be ex-husband doesn't find out? I have to admit that that does strain credulity. You see, I was born and raised in a very small town. (My grandparents lived two doors down from one nosy parker, and I lived across the street from another.) There are people who spend most of their time sticking their noses into everyone else's business. In fact, these people are so talented that Joanne Ross's every move would be observed and reported. There would have been no unseen sneaking in and out of houses. However, I also know that it is possible to live in a small town and have secrets that no one else knows about. That's why the hidden lives of McLeod and Smart don't bother me as much. Most of their history took place well away from Inverness... but those evening meetings when Mrs. Smart would slip through McLeod's back gate? People knew.

With that said, these inconsistencies did not ruin the book for me at all. I love Scott's evocative writing style. She sets a scene so well that I can easily picture it in my mind. The main characters are so real to me that I swear I've had them all over for tea (or in McAllister's case, a wee dram o' Talisker's) many times. I've joined with them in sorrow and in joy, and in unraveling the intricate mysteries they must solve. Each mystery in this series involves uncovering layers of secrets people thought were safely buried, and I enjoy trying to get to the answers first.

It's a brave writer who kills one of her main characters, and I admire Scott for doing it. Now that she's effectively shaken up the "old guard," I wonder how much faster those at the Highland Gazette will work to bring Inverness to the modern world?

Beneath the Abbey Wall by A.D. Scott

ISBN: 9781451665772

Atria Books © 2012

Paperback, 352 pages

Historical Mystery, #3 Highland Gazette mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen. 

A Double Death on the Black Isle by A.D. Scott

Title: A Double Death on the Black Isle
Author: A.D. Scott
ISBN: 9781439154946
Publisher: Atria Books, 2011
Paperback, 384 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery, #2 Highland Gazette mystery
Rating: A+
Source: the publisher

First Line: Cycling across the suspension bridge over the wide, fast-flowing river Joanne Ross looked down-- no, no bodies.

The people living on the Black Isle in Scotland are oftentimes a contentious bunch. The Tinkers are trusted by no one, but their services are badly needed because so many Highlanders died a decade before in the Second World War. The fishermen there have nothing in common with the farmers, and the villages keep themselves apart from the town. When two deaths occur on the same day that involve the same families from the same estate, all the inhabitants of the Black Isle have theories as to what really happened.

Joanne Ross has been given the prize assignment of reporting on these murders, but she feels there may be a conflict of interest. After all, the woman at the very heart of both deaths is one of her closest friends. Joanne knows the story could be her big break, and as a woman-- and a single mother-- in the Highlands of the 1950s a good job like this is almost unheard of. As the staff of The Highland Gazette begin their investigations, secrets are uncovered that will change this remote corner of Scotland.

Author A.D. Scott has said that she is "a huge fan of writers who can transport you to a time and place where you feel you know a landscape intimately from the author’s description – even if it is a landscape completely foreign to you." This is exactly the type of book she writes. The staff of the newspaper are so well-drawn that one feels as though one's leaving a group of dear friends by the time the last page is turned. They also make working on a small town newspaper staff in the Highlands of that era come to life.

Both murders kept my interest throughout the book, and the fact that the second one had no firm resolution except in individual readers' minds made me smile. Not everything in life is tied up with a pretty bow at the end, and I do like that to happen occasionally in the books that I read.

Two characters shine especially brightly in A Double Death in the Great Glen: Joanne Ross, a woman who's lived in an abusive marriage for ten years before sending her husband packing. Not only does she have to contend with a man who enjoys using her as a punching bag, but she has to contend with society's and her family's opinions as she tries to begin a new and better life for herself and her daughters. She is an endearing-- and sometimes maddening-- character. Joanne refuses to behave the way that we readers would like, but she is slowly coming around to a true sense of her own worth and capabilities.

The second character is Joanne's friend, Patricia Ord Mackenzie. In turns charming, intimidating, manipulative and vulnerable, she always remains enigmatic-- and extremely intriguing. So much so in fact, that I wouldn't mind at all if she appeared again in a future book.

A.D. Scott immerses her readers in the lives of her characters and in the landscape and mindset of the Highlands of Scotland in the 1950s. There is so much to savor: mother-daughter relationships, family loyalty, intricately plotted murders.... If you have yet to savor a book written by this talented writer, I urge you to do so. Once you've finished one of her stories, it takes a while to return to the present day!

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