"His Bloody Project" by Graeme Macrae Burnet

This book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Other Booker novels, in 2016 and other years, can be found here.

Set in a remote highland village in 1869, this novel is made up of the testimonies of Roderick Macrae, a crofter's son accused of a gruesome triple murder, and others involved in the case. There is never any question of whodunnit, only of why and whether the accused can be described as insane. All the characters are intensely believable (although the narration of the protagonist is hugely articulate and apparently lacking in dialect) and I can't remember so rooting for a murderer since Good Times, Bad Times by James Kirkwood. Once we get into the narrative, it was a page turner. At the same time, the author uses the narrative to highlight the iniquities and abuses of power inherent in the laird-crofter relationship of the time.

Selected quotes:

• "My father did not like Mr Gillies. He was too clever for his own good and teaching children was not proper work for a man." 
• "For folks like us there is no other ship than the hard ship."
• "Mrs MacLeod was an ancient widow known as the Onion on account of the great number of layers of clothing she wore." 
• "It is not the blow that causes greatest distress, but the anticipation of it."
• "The gaoler showed no surprise ..., This class of being exists almost entirely in the present; they think little of the past nor project their thoughts into the future, and are thus incapable of being surprised by anything. They are similarly incapable of experiencing boredom and are accordingly well-suited to undemanding and repetitive labour."
• "Prisoners rarely express remorse for what they have done. Any feelings of regret they might feel are generally limited to the fact of their being apprehended." 

July 2022; 280 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God