THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

George Heriot, jeweller to King James VI, moves with the Court from Edinburgh to London to take over the English throne. It is 1603. Life is a Babel of languages and glittering new wealth. The Scottish court speaks Danish, German, Middle Scots, French and Latin. James gives Shakespeare his first secure position. To calm the perfidious religious tensions in the country, he commissions his translation of the Bible. He creates the Union Jack, called after himself.

George becomes wealthier than the king as he sets a fashion for hat jewels and mingles with Drummond of Hawthornden, Ben Johnson, Inigo Jones and the mysterious ambassador Luca Von Modrich. However, both king and courtier bow before the phenomenal power invested in their wives.

Two misfits, Carys Price and Angharad ‘Hazard’ Evans, strike out from their disenfranchised seaside town to take ownership of the High Fields, a mythical island brimming with world-bending promise.

Objecting to the demands of modern society, they hope to find a place where they can live as they choose, but instead they find an ancient power that tears their friendship apart.

Ten years later, Carys returns to the collapsing world of the High Fields to face the terrifying power of the friend-turned-goddess she left behind.

The latest gripping novel in the Polish detective series featuring DI Dania Gorska.

Polish-born DI Dania Gorska is called upon to investigate a seemingly straightforward case of an RTA – a car has crashed into a tree, having first hit a deer on an icy road. But a witness has come forward to say he saw someone fleeing the scene and then the autopsy reveals vicious marks on the head of the dead man. Suddenly Dania is looking at murder.

The dead man, Eddie Sangster, has had an intriguing past – the youngest of three brothers, he inherited the family estate after the oldest committed suicide and the other simply disappeared. But decades on it would seem someone is out for vengeance as murder stones – carved headstones attesting to the brutal murders of both brothers – start to appear on the grounds of the estate.

Clearly the key to the puzzle of the murder stones lies at Sangster Hall, where a calamitous incident in the past is now shaping the present, and it is up to Dania to discover the murderous secret of the Sangster family.

As she is pulled into her family’s world of secrets and spells, Ramya sets out to discover the truth about the Hidden Folk with only three words of warning from her grandfather: Beware the Sirens.

Plunged into an adventure that will change everything, Ramya is about to learn that there is more to her powers than she ever imagined.

In January 2020, leading epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse learned of a new virus taking hold in China. He immediately foresaw a hard road ahead for the entire world, and emailed the Chief Medical Officer of Scotland warning that the UK should urgently begin preparations. A few days later he received a polite reply stating only that everything was under control.

In this astonishing account, Mark Woolhouse shares his story as an insider, having served on advisory groups to both the Scottish and UK governments. He reveals the disregarded advice, frustration of dealing with politicians, and the missteps that led to the deaths of vulnerable people, damage to livelihoods and the disruption of education. He explains the follies of lockdown and sets out the alternatives. Finally, he warns that when the next pandemic comes, we must not dither and we must not panic; never again should we make a global crisis even worse.

The Year the World Went Mad puts our recent, devastating, history in a completely new light.

A project to re-introduce beavers brings a town together against a common threat, in this touching tale from master storyteller Gill Lewis.

Times are tough for Cari and her mum: a violent storm has flooded the valley where they live, destroying their home and café business. Things seem bleak – but hope appears in the form of a plan to reintroduce beavers into the area, as the changes that these amazing animals make to the waterways might prevent another flood. Cari knows that she has to get involved. But with the project facing resistance from locals, can she convince them to give the beavers a chance – and will it be enough to save her home from being destroyed for a second time?

Over 40 years, two British police units acted undercover to infiltrate activist groups. At least 20 of those officers deliberately targeted women and entered relationships with them. One of those women was me. This is my story.

Men wrote the police files. They wrote the scripts and the headlines. Men wrote the court orders to make us anonymous and they will sit in judgement at the coming public inquiry. In a system that doesn’t see women, you have to fight to be heard. When they take your identity, you have to find your voice.

Learning the truth nearly destroyed me – but an accidental activist was born.

A voice at the centre of the Spy Cops scandal. The great love story of Donna McLean’s life wasn’t just built on lies, it was one. With an inquiry underway, Small Town Girl is a reclamation of a truth that was ruthlessly buried.

Near the dying English seaside town of Ilmarsh, local police detective Alec Nichols discovers sixteen horses’ heads on a farm, each buried with a single eye facing the low winter sun. After forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen travels to the scene, the investigators soon uncover evidence of a chain of crimes in the community – disappearances, arson and mutilations – all culminating in the reveal of something deadly lurking in the ground itself.

In the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect. And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightening and insidious mysteries – no matter the cost.

Sixteen Horses is the debut literary thriller from an extraordinary talent, Greg Buchanan. A story of enduring guilt, trauma and punishment, set in a small seaside community the rest of the world has left behind . . .

Seacrest is a seaside town for movie buffs that exists in a perpetual film festival. Seacrest residents grow up with fold-down seats in their living room, dress in Edith Head and walk to the corner-shop with the grace and style of Gable and Dietrich. Dr Jo Ashe, a film academic, moved to join her girlfriend yet finds herself alone, wondering if she’ll ever be accepted by a place she’s loved since childhood. Harry Lawson fights to revive the reputation of his father, a once-revered projectionist who committed suicide, whilst Luke Howard, keeper of the Cameron Fletcher Archive, devotes himself to the memory of the deceased film critic. Now Fletcher is back from the dead, guest of honour of the 85th Seacrest Film Festival. However, this Fletcher is a fake, an actor, Arthur Dott, hired by a powerful cinema boss determined to turn the town into a multiplex. But Arthur follows his own script and in doing so reveals to Harry, Luke and Jo the dangers of a life too much in love with the silver screen…

In the burgeoning industrial city of Glasgow in 1817 Jean Campbell – a young, Deaf woman – is witnessed throwing a child into the River Clyde from the Old Bridge.

No evidence is yielded from the river. Unable to communicate with their silent prisoner, the authorities move Jean to the decaying Edinburgh Tolbooth in order to prise the story from her. The High Court calls in Robert Kinniburgh, a talented teacher from the Deaf & Dumb Institution, in the hope that he will interpret for them and determine if Jean is fit for trial. If found guilty she faces one of two fates; death by hanging or incarceration in an insane asylum.

Through a process of trial and error, Robert and Jean manage to find a rudimentary way of communicating with each other. As Robert gains her trust, Jean confides in him, and Robert begins to uncover the truth, moving uneasily from interpreter to investigator, determined to clear her name before it is too late.

Based on a landmark case in Scottish legal history Hear No Evil is a richly atmospheric exploration of nineteenth-century Edinburgh and Glasgow at a time when progress was only on the horizon. A time that for some who were silenced could mean paying the greatest price.

Thirteen-year-old Ivy North is an adventurer. She can pitch a tent in four minutes flat, knows the local landscape like the back of her hand, and she’s an expert map reader. There’s just one problem.

She’s afraid to go outside.

But when her little brother is transformed into a kestrel by a powerful sorcerer, Ivy is the only one who can rescue him. Following him through a mysterious hole in the garden wall, she emerges in Underfell — an enchanted realm that seems like the Lake District she knows, but is dangerously different.

Battling her dread of being out in the open, Ivy must gather all her courage to navigate a path across this extraordinary world, where powerful fairies with birds’ wings fly through purple skies and a ghostly spectre haunts her every step. With the help of an unexpected new friend, can Ivy break the spell — before her brother becomes a bird forever?

An immersive and beautifully written fantasy adventure, The Sky Beneath the Stone is a soaring journey of family, friendship, overcoming fear — and realising that we are never as lost as we think we are. Alex Mullarky’s debut novel introduces a captivating new talent in children’s fiction.

Glasgow 1975

A deadly fire
An arson attack on a Glasgow warehouse causes the deaths of a young mother and child.
Police suspect it’s the latest act in a brutal gang warfare that’s tearing the city apart – one that DI Duncan McCormack has been tasked with stopping.

A brutal murder
Five years ago he was walking on water as the cop who tracked down a notorious serial killer.  But he made powerful enemies and when a mutilated body is found in a Tradeston slum,
McCormack is assigned a case that no one wants. The dead man is wearing a masonic ring, though, and Duncan realizes the victim is not the down-and-out his boss had first assumed.

A catastrophic explosion
As McCormack looks into both crimes, the investigations are disrupted by a shocking event.
A bomb rips through a pub packed with people – and a cop is killed in the blast.  The cases are stacking up and with one of his own unit now dead, McCormack is in the firing line.

But he’s starting to see a thread – one that connects all three attacks…

Formed into a regiment in 1739 and named for the dark tartan of its soldiers’ kilts, The Black Watch has fought in almost every major conflict of nation and empire between 1745 and the present, and has a reputation second to none. Following on from The Highland Furies, in which she traced the regiment’s history to 1899, Victoria Schofield tells the story of The Black Watch in the 20th and 21st centuries. She tracks its fortunes through the 2nd South African War, two World Wars, the ‘troubles’ in N Ireland and the war in Iraq – up to The Black Watch’s merger with five other regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006.

Drawing on diaries, letters and interviews, Victoria Schofield weaves the many strands of the story into an epic narrative of a heroic body of officers and men. In her sure hands, the story of The Black Watch is no arid recitation of campaigns and battle honours, but a rewarding account of the fortunes of war of a regiment that has played a distinguished role in British, and world, history.

The wars fought in Scotland’s northern and western highlands between the ninth and fourteenth centuries were a key stage in the military history of the region, yet they have rarely been studied in-depth before. Out of this confused and turbulent period came the more settled and familiar history of the region. The Highlands and islands were controlled by the kings of Norway or by Norse or Norse-Celtic warlords, who not only resisted Scottish royal authority but on occasion seemed likely to overthrow it. That is why Chris Peers’s ambitious study is of such value for he provides a coherent and vivid account of the series of campaigns and battles that shaped Scotland.

The narrative is structured around a number of battles – Skitten Moor, Torfness, Tankerness, Renfrew, Mam Garvia, Clairdon and Dalrigh – which illustrate phases of the conflict and reveal the strategies and tactics of the rival chieftains. Chris Peers explores the international background to many of these conflicts which had consequences for Scotland’s relations with England, Ireland and continental Europe. At the same time he considers to what extent the fighting methods of the time survived into the post-medieval period.

A dead police officer. A murder that no-one wants to solve…

Dublin, 1986. The murder of an off-duty officer in Phoenix Park should have brought down the full power of the Dublin police force. But Kieran Lynch was found in a notorious gay cruising ground, so even as the press revels in the scandal, some of the Murder Squad are reluctant to investigate.

Only Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are determined to search out the difficult truth, walking the streets of nighttime Dublin to find Kieran’s lovers and friends. But Gina has her own secret that means she must withhold vital evidence. When a fire rips through Temple Bar and another man is killed, she must decide what price she is willing to pay to find a murderer.

A gripping mystery that will keep you hooked until the final page, perfect for readers of Val McDermid, Denise Mina, Tana French and Adrian McKinty.

Where is Stef Campbell? And who can be trusted to bring her home?

Paramedic Andy Campbell has a secret he can’t tell anyone, not least the police.

But when his missing wife’s image is found at the home of a suspected killer, detectives start asking questions, and they’re not the only ones . . .

The race for the truth leads them far from their Edinburgh home – but who will find her first, and will they save her life or take it?

Data has never mattered more. Our lives are increasingly shaped by it and how it is defined, collected and used. But who counts in the collection, analysis and application of data?

This important book is the first to look at queer data – defined as data relating to gender, sex, sexual orientation and trans identity/history. The author shows us how current data practices reflect an incomplete account of LGBTQ lives and helps us understand how data biases are used to delegitimise the everyday experiences of queer people.

Guyan demonstrates why it is important to understand, collect and analyse queer data, the benefits and challenges involved in doing so, and how we might better use queer data in our work. Arming us with the tools for action, this book shows how greater knowledge about queer identities is instrumental in informing decisions about resource allocation, changes to legislation, access to services, representation and visibility.

In Time on Rock Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing, and the new developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape.

Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and unique pleasures. She also shows us how climbing invites us into the history of a place: geologically, of course, but also culturally.

This book is Anna’s journey of self-discovery, but it is also a guide to losing oneself in the greater majesty of the natural world. With great lyricism she explores how it feels to climb as a woman, the pleasures of the physical demands of climbing, fear and challenge, but more than anything, it is about a joyful connection to the mountains.

After an ambush leaves the Novantae resistance in tatters, the survivors scatter across the galaxy. Wanted by two great empires, the bounty on any rebel’s head is enough to make a captor filthy rich. And the Seven Devils? Biggest score of them all.

The Devils take refuge on Fortuna where Ariadne gets a message with unimaginable consequences: the Oracle has gone rogue. In a planned coup against the Empire’s new ruler, the AI has developed a way of mass programming citizens into mindless drones. The Oracle’s demand is simple: it wants its daughter Ariadne back at any cost.

Time for an Impossible to Infiltrate mission: high chance of death, low chance of success. The Devils will have to use their unique skills, no matter the sacrifice, even if that means teaming up with old enemies. Their plan? Get to the heart of the Empire. Destroy the Oracle. Burn it all to the ground.