Scottish history, alternating perspectives, two main time periods, a complex and engaging storyline: this is entirely appealing to me and a novel I highly recommend to you.
In the story, Sergeant Adam Williamson stands in for his superior officer on an investigation into a woman who is claiming widow’s rights to her late husband’s salary. He is staying in Calder’s Land, the name for a thin multi-story tenement in Edinburgh, as he gathers information about the woman and whether her claims can be verified. Nothing is as it seems, about said widow, about the political climate of the city and the country, about the motives for this investigation, and about whether he can stay entirely unbiased in his investigation into the beautiful Lily Aitcheson, who has ties to the Jacobites (the Scottish movement to put a Stuart on the throne).
One of the outstanding aspects of this novel is the language the author uses to depict the way people spoke in late 17th and early 18th century Scotland, which is unforced, believable and consistent. Another is the way that the story of these characters is peeled back layer by layer, revealing relationships, secrets, and identities. And a third is the poetic nature of her descriptions for scenes, feelings or philosophies. Susanna Kearsley is an impeccable researcher, and I was fortunate to hear about her methods in a talk at the Lockport Public Library in 2012 about the companion novel to this one, The Winter Sea. You don’t need to read that in order to read this one, but you may want to look into all of her novels if you enjoy well-told historical fiction.
This novel is framed beautifully by the John Masefield poem, "The Word," at the beginning and this conversation near the end:
"You could have been clear," she says, "at the beginning."
"I was clear enough."
"You did not tell them all the truth."
I've always like the answer Robert Moray gave to me, and so I use it now: "All men leave pieces out when they tell tales," I say. "It is no crime."
She sighs, and picks a kitten up and puts it in the basket.
"They will get there in the end," I promise. Readers always do.
Thanks to Sourcebooks and Edelweiss for an advance copy. To be published October 5th, 2021.
