Diary of a Shopkeeper, 5th October
A small Scottish island…a murder…a suspect on the run… No, not Ann Cleeves’ The Killing Stones: that’s not out till Tuesday. My weekend reading, coorying down from Storm Amy, has been Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet.
This GMB, the second notable writer with those initials, is an Ayrshire man with family roots in the Lochcarron area of the West Highlands, is the author of five other novels. Amongst those is the Booker-Prize shortlisted His Bloody Project, about a disturbed teenager in 19th century Applecross, who commits a series of gruesome murders. There’s also a trilogy of novels about a French detective in a dull provincial town enlivened by baffling and sometimes violent criminal activity.
Now comes his new novel, part of Polygon’s excellent Darkland Tales series, dedicated to publishing novellas or short novels reimagining ‘dark’ episodes from Scotland’s history. Other entries in the series I’ve enjoyed include Nothing Left to Fear from Hell by Alan Warner, about Bonnie Prince Charlie on the run in 1746, and Columba’s Bones by David Greig, featuring clashes between monks and Vikings in Iona in 825.
Benbecula takes place on that small flat island, a stepping stone between North and South Uist, in the late-1850s. The story is told by Malcolm MacPhee, a crofter, who begins his account thus: ‘On the ninth day of July 1857 my brother Angus did to death my father, my mother and my aunt, all in the most brutal and purposeful fashion.’ Over the following 138 pages, MacPhee paints a picture of a poor, inward-looking community, a dysfunctional family, and above all a younger brother who might be mad, might be bad, or might be both combined, in different proportions and at different times.
As in His Bloody Project, GMB shows himself to be a master pasticher of 19th century language, and a knowledgeable portrayer of everyday life in the Highlands of the time. Whether describing the crofters’ meals – mostly porridge and potatoes – or their work – collecting seaware from the shore – or their attitude to betterment and education – ‘You can’t turn over the soil with a book’ – GMB chooses the telling detail time after time.
It's a vivid picture, and immediately convincing. This is partly because of GMB’s mastery of the place and period, and partly because it’s so similar to His Bloody Project. That’s not a criticism; all writers have their favourite subjects and return to them repeatedly, looking at similar subjects from different angles and with different emphases. The major difference between this book and its predecessor is that the latter was a collage of different texts: a confession by the murderer, transcriptions of police interviews, newspaper accounts of the court case, and a modern-day editor’s commentary.
Benbecula is, apart from a short author’s afterword, told solely from the point of view and in the voice of Malcolm MacPhee. That makes it a less complex book than His Bloody Project – inevitably, as it’s half the length. But it also means it moves along with tremendous speed, and with an inexorable momentum. I sat down on Saturday morning to read a chapter or two, and stood up four hours later having finished the whole thing.
In this respect – its pace and grip – it reminded me of GMB’s French trilogy. There, the life and crimes of Inspector Gorski are portrayed with vivid economy, and small-town French life is pungently evoked. But it’s really all about The Story (even if the focus of story is not always what it first appears to be.)
GMB has frequently talked about his admiration for the Belgian writer Georges Simenon, author of an astonishing 400 novels, most famously a long series featuring Parisian detective Inspector Maigret. Simenon was a strong advocate of simple writing, with few distracting adverbs or adjectives, and no flowery language at all. ‘Whenever you write a beautiful sentence,’ he said, ‘You should cut it out.’ He didn’t want ostentatiously clever writing distracting from his story, or his characters, or the communities he evoked. The focus should be on them rather than the writer’s extensive vocabulary or ingenious way with a metaphor. It worked for Simenon, and it works for Graeme Macrae Burnett. Of course that doesn’t mean they’re not clever writers. They’re very clever, but clever in a different way.
Benbecula is a brilliant and shocking novel, like the bright blade of a tuskar cutting into the dark flesh of the peatbank.
Ah! There I go with an ingenious metaphor! GMB would cut it out.
I mentioned that Graeme Macrae Burnet had published five novels before this one, and detailed four of them. The fifth was left out purely for reasons of space, and is also highly recommended. It’s called Case Study. You can read more about it, and all GMB’s books, here.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 9th October 2025. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.