North Sea Requiem

What begins as a quiet domestic story deepens into a bloody examination of the effects of change on an insular culture in Scott’s fourth novel set in the 1950s Scottish Highlands (after 2012’s Beneath the Abbey Wall). The discovery of a man’s severed leg in a boot worn to play shinty, an ancient game that was the forerunner of ice hockey, and an attack on a local nurse come to the attention of the Highland Gazette staff, including reporter Joanne Ross and McAllister, the editor who has come to love her. Anonymous letters ratchet up the tension, and nobody knows what to make of the arrival of Mae Bell, an American singer seeking information about the death of her husband some years earlier. Meanwhile, feelings are ruthlessly suppressed and shame is endemic. When the festering resentments and anger boil over, the result is death, madness, and a horrifying loss of innocence. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (Sept.)