George Gently
is off on vacation with his new girlfriend Brenda, his sister
Bridget and her husband Geoffrey. They are bound for the Scottish
Highlands, but once there encounter rather more than just
the promised golden eagles and wildcats. There is something
rather odd going on nearby and a body proves it; who is the
red bearded man who tried to run them off the road and is
there really a private army roaming the glens?
I said that the last book Gently With The Ladies was
a departure for Hunter, but this is even more so. More than
the characters have gone on vacation this time, and despite
a lovely description of the long road north I suspect that
the author is not on familiar ground when he heads off to
the Highlands for this book. For this is the fantasy Highlands
of many books, the heather trod by Bonnie Prince Charlie and
the like, and reality seems to have checked out at the border.
This is a pity, as lyrical descriptions of everyday places
like the Norfolk Broads, small dusty towns on the way to nowhere
and remote stretches of road are what he does best. Flights
of fancy involving lairds with private armies might suit writers
like John Buchan and Dornford Yates but in Hunter’s
hands it does not quite work. Add in a murder that is easier
to solve than usual and you have an experiment that was bravely
attempted but failed to please in the same way his other books
have. At least, this is my opinion; in a series this strong
the author is surely pardoned the odd try-out in a different
style and it might just prove to be your favorite.
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