Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Posted in Reading Reviewed, Scottish Fiction, Scottish Literature at 12:00 on 6 August 2026
Polygon, 2025, 145 p, plus 25 p Afterword and 1 p Acknowledgements.
The sixth in Birlinn’s Darkland Tales series, this is the story of the murder in Liniclate on Benbecula of three members of his family by Angus McPhee. as told in retrospect by his brother, Malcolm who, with his sister Marion, was out gathering seaweed when the fatal events took place.
Angus had always been a reluctant worker on the family croft but had spent time on a neighbouring island and on return shown signs of mental problems. The local community had thereafter had such concerns at his behaviour that they had him examined for possible confinement in a lunatic asylum but family pride and a reluctance to pay for such provision precluded this.
Life in Liniclate, as in much of rural Scotland in 1857, was harsh, more or less hand-to-mouth. It provokes in Malcolm that dour attitude to life exemplified by Calvinism’s Scottish expression. “Hope serves only as a buttress to misery. It is better all round to accept one’s lot in life and not entertain notions of a less onerous existence.”
Malcolm also has a cynical view of human nature. “I do not suppose that many among you would have the least interest in the incidents I have thus far related were it not for the fact that they serve as a prelude to violence. When a tale promises bloodshed no one leaves their seat.”
The murders blighted Malcolm’s life. The remaining family was all but ostracised by the locals and Marion and youngest brother John left the island (though Marion wasn’t seen to board the ferry,) while Malcolm withdrew into himself. He harbours dark thoughts about the Mrs MacLeod who comes in weekly to see to his welfare and ensure he bathes every month or so. Such is the tone of his reflections that the reader wonders if Malcolm has not succumbed to madness himself and, indeed, if his account is reliable in any sense.
This is another well written addition to the Darklands series but its resemblances to Burnet’s earlier novel His Bloody Project make it seem less original than the others.
Pedant’s corner:- in the Afterword; “none of whom were married” (none of whom was married.)
