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Then there's Mhairi – earth mother incarnate and keeper of the local café (naturally) – and the good-looking youth struggling to keep a family farm going up on the hillside.
So far, so twee. However: this is modern Scotland, Scotland in the run -up to a referendum that may or may not vote to sever its future from the rest of the United Kingdom, a politicised Scotland. Even in that maelstrom, an out-of-the-way place like Kilmacarra Glen might not have paid much attention but for the Spanish. They're the 'baddies' in the mix, being the owners of the company chosen to set up the local windfarmwind farm. Not everyone in Kilmacarra is in favour of renewable energy, especially if it means destroying their glen and to hell with the jobs: what jobs? What kind? How many? And for how long?
This is what Justine crashes into when she stumbles off the bus in the middle of nowhere.
This isn't one to draw you into an intricate plot. In essence, very little happens between a lost young soul stumbling off a bus and…and where everyone eventually ends up.
Don't get me wrong: you won't be done out of a vicious meeting and a chase and a tense hunt sequence. You'll get the occasional bite of vindictive violence in word and / or deed. But the strength of it, isn't in those scenes. The strength is in the sense of people and of place. The whole backdrop, against a remote village , trying to find its place in history as well as in the modern world, where the outsiders see the history but for those who live there it's all about windfarms and soldiers dying in Afghanistan and who cares about the archaeology and how can anyone make a sheep farm pay?
Just in case you get suckered into the romance of the highlands, Campbell takes the occasional trip back down to Glasgow to where Charlie Boy is ranting and raging against the woman who's had the sheer gall to walk out on him. It's not about the money. She could'a had the money. It's the humiliation. Later the author gives us a less clichéd look at the capital, but the dark side, she seems to think is still there, the thugs with their dogs and their weapons and their pride and their senseless rivalry.
It isn't going to grab everyone, and if I'm honest, it took a while to win me over, but it did so, and I can't help wondering if a second read might be even more rewarding.
For more modern takes on rural Scots crime , we can recommend [[Lamb to the Slaughter by Aline Templeton]] or if you prefer the gentler side of things there's always [[:Category:M C Beaton|M C Beaton's]] Hamish Macbeth to fall back on. We've also enjoyed [[After the Fire by Karen Campbell|After the Fire]] by Karen Campbell.
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