Book 18 - Dearest Dacha

Dearest Dacha by Norman Maclean - first published as Dacha Mo Ghaoil in 2005

This book is only 2/3rds the size of a usual paperback and is only 102 pages long.  As a favour to their friend Duncan, 2 dodgy dealers Davy and Calum agree to travel from the Outer Hebrides to Glasgow to marry Tanya and Tamara, 2 Russian weightlifters so that they can get UK passports.  Tanya and Tamara come to North Uist to work in a sex club that Duncan has set up on a croft that he has gained possession of illegally from an elderly women, who has dementia and lives in a care home.  Meanwhile a local lawyer called Margaret MacCorquodale is determined to cleanse the island of immoral goings on before the Queen comes on a visit and to get the croft returned to its rightful owner.  A very bizarre tale.  5/10

Islands covered - North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist

North Uist

 Loch Sgioport, South Uist

South Uist - Howmore Hostel

Book 17 - The Chessmen

The Chessmen by Peter May - first published in 2013

This is the 3rd book in the Lewis Trilogy.  Ex-detective Fin Macleod has a new job as head of security on a large sporting estate in the west of Lewis, which has been having problems with poachers.  He is reunited with an old school friend Whistler Macaskill, who is one of the estate's tenants.  One night they are out together when they witness a rare bog burst and all the water in a small loch suddenly drains away to reveal a light aircraft with the body of a man inside it.  The plane belonged to their mutual friend musician Roddy Mackenzie, who disappeared 17 years earlier.  Whistler reacts to the find in a very odd way and on closer examination it turns out that the man was not killed in the plane crash but was murdered.

While it isn't necessary to have read the 2 previous novels in the series to understand the main plot of this book, some of the many subplots make more sense if you have read the other books.  In common with the other 2 books, this one has an exciting conclusion and blends real locations and historic events (e.g. the sinking of the Iolaire in 1919 off Stornoway) with fiction very well.  The book has maps of the islands making up the Outer Hebrides showing the location of events in all 3 books inside the front and back covers of the book.  Such maps always warrant and extra mark in my opinion!  8/10

Islands covered - Lewis and North Uist

 The Bridge to Nowhere, North Tolsta, Lewis

This bridge features in The Chessmen as the scene of an accident following a motorbike time trial between Roddy and fellow band member Strings to decide the new name for their band.  Years later Fin remembers something about that day, which is crucial to him solving the mystery.

Book 16 - Murder Solstice

Murder Solstice by Keith Moray - first published in 2008

This is the 3rd book in the series of crime novels set on the fictional island of West Uist and featuring police Inspector Torquil McKinnon and his colleagues.

The story starts with an apparent double suicide of a farmer and his wife.  Then a new age cult-like group  called the Daisy Institute purchases Dunshiffin Castle and attracts some of the islanders to leave their families and join them.  Their charismatic leader Logan Burns is particularly interested in the local ancient stone circle known as the Hoolish Stones.  His theories about the origins and meaning of the stones bring him into conflict with an islander called Finlay MacNeil, who has been studying the stones for many years.  Then Finlay is murdered.

 Meanwhile elsewhere on West Uist some newcomers to the island have set up a dog fighting ring and Torquil's boss has sent Sergeant Lorna Golspie to investigate the way he is running the West Uist Division of the police.  As with the other books in this series this book is a quick and easy read.  The plot isn't entirely believable but who cares, as the main characters are all very likeable.  Given that the population of West Uist is only a few hundred the total number of murders in the 4 books in the series means that the island has one of the highest murder rates in the world, if not the highest! 7/10

Book 15 - Great Northern?

Great Northern? By Arthur Ransome – first published in 1947 

This is the 12th and last completed novel in the Swallows and Amazons series.  I read the first book, which is also called Swallows and Amazons, as a child but didn’t enjoy it much, so never read any of the others.  I wasn’t interested in sailing and preferred stories about horses, boarding schools or land based adventures at the time.  I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who has read all of them but who said she enjoyed them more as an adult than she had as a child.

The book features all the characters from the series – the Walkers (Swallows – John, Susan, Titty & Roger), the Blacketts (Amazons – Nancy and Peggy) and the Callums (Ds – Dick and Dorothea).  They are together for the first time since Pigeon Post (6^th in the series).   They have joined Captain Flint for a fortnight's cruise around the Hebrides.  As they prepare to return their pilot cutter, the Sea Bear, to her owner at the end of their holiday, they persuade Captain Flint to visit a deserted cove on an unnamed island in the Outer Hebrides. Their charts show that the Sea Bear's owner Mac once scrubbed her hull clean of barnacles etc there and they decide they would like to do the same as a thank you to Mac, for lending them the boat.

Nancy, Peggy, John, Susan and Captain Flint scrape the Sea Bear’s hull at low tide, having beached her at high tide.  While they are doing this Titty, Roger, Dick and Dorothea explore the island. Dick, who is a keen birdwatcher, sees a pair of birds nesting. He is sure they are great northern divers, but is confused because his books say that they do not nest in Britain.  He therefore seeks out a man, who he thinks is a fellow birdwatcher when their boats are both moored in the same harbour the next day.  However he says too much about the great northern divers before he realises that Mr Jemmerling is an egg collector rather than a birdwatcher. 

Dick is desperate to take a photograph of the great northern divers on their nest, as proof that they do nest in Britain.  The crew of the Sea Bear do their best to give Mr Jemmerling and his henchmen the slip but he follows them in his motor cruiser the Pterodactyl back to the cove.    The children set up decoy parties to throw Mr Jemmerling off the scent but in doing so they upset the Gaelic-speaking residents of the island, who think they are chasing the island’s deer.

The plot is a bit thin but the story is well written, the main characters are very likeable and the book has an exciting finish.  Considering the book was written 65 years ago it has stood the test of time well.  Taking wild bird eggs has only been illegal since 1954 according to the RSPB’s website, which may explain why the crew of the Sea Bear didn’t just call the police and let them deal with Mr Jemmerling.

Great Northern Divers do exists and 2,500 do visit the UK coast in winter but they don’t breed here.  Some non-breeding birds stay off the northern coasts of the UK in summer.   6/10

Book 14 - Deathly Wind

Deathly Wind by Keith Moray - first published in 2007
Inspector Torquil McKinnon returns to the fictional island of West Uist after a period of leave to get over the murder of his ex-girlfriend in the previous book - The Gathering Murders.  However in his absence Ewan McPhee, his only police constable, has disappeared from the police catamaran and is presumed drowned.  The unpleasant new owner and laird of Dunshiffin Castle, Jock McArdle, seems determined to drive his crofting tenants from the peninsula known as the Wee Kingdom to make way for a large wind farm.  Then people start to die.  At first it seems like a series of unfortunate accidents and deaths from pre-existing medical conditions but as the bodies start to pile up Torquil and his remaining colleagues try to unravel what is going on.  By the end of the book 6 people and 2 dogs are dead.  The plot is a little unbelievable and I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as numbers 1 and 4 in the series but it is nonetheless worth reading.  6/10

Book 13 - Devilweed

Devilweed by Bill Knox - first published in 1966
Despite being published 46 years ago,  this crime novel in the Webb Carrick series doesn't feel dated.   Webb Carrick is Chief Officer on the Fishery Protection cruiser Marlin.   He and his colleagues have been tasked with looking for the Mora, a lobster boat, which has gone missing from the fictitious Rathbeg Isles, which are located somewhere between the Inner and Outer Hebrides.  They find a boat drifting half submerged near the Black Reef Lighthouse but it isn't  the Mora.  It is the Thrift, the floating branch of the Bank of Central Scotland.  Her crew of 3 are nowhere to be found.  They tow the Thrift to Kenbeg, the largest of the Rathbeg Isles where they beach it and drain the water out.  As it will take a day for the police to arrive on Kenbeg, Carrick begins to investigate but most of the residents of the Kenbeg are less than friendly.   Drammy MacPherson, a Kenbeg fisherman went missing at the same time as the Mora and is suspected of 'borrowing' it.  On the neighbouring island of Buidhe Robert Tenford has a successful bulb growing enterprise but why does he not welcome visitors to his island?  There is an exciting ending and even a bit of romance thrown in for good measure. 

Devilweed is a local name for a dark brown seaweed that is rarely seen on the surface of the sea except after a storm.  8/10

Book 12 - The Gathering Murders

The Gathering Murders by Keith Moray - first published 2006
This is the first book in the Inspector Torquil McKinnon series and like the others it is set on the fictional island of West Uist, which is presumably located to the west of North or South Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

The entire West Uist Division of the Hebridean Constabulary consists of the bagpipe playing Torquil, Sergeant Morag Driscoll and Constable Ewan McPhee, whose hobby is hammer throwing and 2 special constables twins Wallace and Douglas Drummond, who are also fishermen.  Their resources are stretched to the limit when a local fisherman/Gaelic poet is drowned in mysterious circumstances during the annual West Uist Literary Festival and Gathering, which has brought hundreds of visitors to the island.  3 other people will be murdered before the crime is solved.  The plot is a little overcomplicated and unbelievable but the pace is fast and Torquil and his colleagues are very likeable people.  7/10

This is a photo of the honesty box at the Colonsay Golf Course 'Clubhouse'.  West Uist has a similar golf course with an honesty box, which features in The Gathering Murders and is Torquil's Uncle Lachlan's favourite place to spend time.