I was lying back in the heather, watching the slow progress of the clouds across the sky. The stirks lazily flicked at horseflies with their tails. The animals which I had been charged to watch were rendered slothful by the heat and did not stray far from one hour to the next. The air was so still that it was possible to hear the lapping of the sea and the occasional cry of children playing far below in the village. The sky was clear and the hills across the Sound were various hues of purple. My mother died in the month of April and some weeks later I was alone on the shieling, charged with keeping watch over the sheep and cattle grazing there.
Set 150 years ago in a remote Scottish Highlands community, a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae is arrested for a brutal triple murder. A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but the police and the courts must decide what drove him to the murders. In this compelling and original novel, using the words of the accused, personal testimony, transcripts from the trial and newspaper reports, Graeme Macrae Burnet tells a moving story about the provisional nature of the truth, even when the facts are plain. The moment I finished I wanted to begin again to discover where I had been and how Graeme Macrae Burnet managed to create his masterful tale.’ It is a puzzle of a book but you will have to experience for yourself the brooding drumbeat of its narrative. ‘ His Bloody Project explores primary ideas about storytelling and truth-telling,’ our publisher Michael Heyward wrote, ‘about justice, sanity, reason and feeling, as if the form of the novel was being put together before your eyes.
We are thrilled that Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project has been shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.Īs soon as we read the book we knew we had to publish it.
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