Hitherto, MacKay's books have taken place in a stripped-back, contemporary Scotland, amped-up by stylish prose and meditative criminal protagonists. So my expectations here were for something similar, but in a more Caithness-ish setting.
However, there's more to the change of scene than just a journey northward.
In outline, it's a well-told crime caper, with good-guy private investigators rubbing up against bad-uns from a centuries-old banking family and their compliant local police force. Unexpectedly, it doesn't really have the distinctive pared-back styling of MacKay's other work. Darian Ross, the PI lead, *is* somewhat in the meditative mode, but the prose is otherwise quite a break with MacKay's earlier, Glasgow-set tales.
And, in what should be an even bigger break with MacKay's other work, this is actually an Alternative History novel. I'd not read its predecessor novel, so it crept up on me gradually, but the deep background is a timeline in which Scotland's failed 17th century Darien Scheme actually worked, aborting the United Kingdom. As it happens, this seismic change in history actually makes for only a slightly tilted version of the present day. This might be MacKay musing on Scottish independence, but, if so, it's very low-key musing, to the point that you wonder what he's trying to say, or why he bothered.
Still, as this is part of a series of novels, he may yet be going places with this idea. In the meantime, this is a perfectly enjoyable novel, if not up to his usual distinctive standard.
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