Introduced by Christopher Harvie.
Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, politician, sportsman and occasional philosopher, was probably the most autobiographical of John Buchan’s heroes. This collection of four novels, written over a span of thirty years, shows Leithen/Buchan in all his moods – from the urban menace of The Power House in which ‘the thin line between civilisation and barbarism’ runs through London’s West End; to the Highland exhilaration of John Macnab; the twists and turns of The Dancing Floor; and Sick Heart River, where Leithen meets death and redemption in the wastes of Canada.
Buchan’s learning and practical experience took him far beyond the range of the ‘clubland hero’ and these tales lead us to the heart of one of Scotland’s most fascinating and enigmatic writers.
‘John Buchan was the first to realise the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.’ Graham Greene
Introduced by John Burns.
Caught up in the strife between smugglers on the Solway Coast and the gypsies of Galloway, young Patrick Heron is flung into a society of social outcasts, outlaws and downright murderers. But this world of moonlit confusion and bloody horror offers a kind of freedom, too, as Patrick travels far beyond the conventions of his day to enter a world made anew by fear and desolation and courage and energy.
Crockett’s raciest narrative is full of the wild Galloway landscape which he knew so well and loved so much, informed at every turn of the plot by his delight in local history and old folk tales of the region. Introduced by John Burns.
Caught up in the strife between smugglers on the Solway Coast and the gypsies of Galloway, young Patrick Heron is flung into a society of social outcasts, outlaws and downright murderers. But this world of moonlit confusion and bloody horror offers a kind of freedom, too, as Patrick travels far beyond the conventions of his day to enter a world made anew by fear and desolation and courage and energy.
Crockett’s raciest narrative is full of the wild Galloway landscape which he knew so well and loved so much, informed at every turn of the plot by his delight in local history and old folk tales of the region.
Introduced by Allan Massie.
Lt. Colonel Jock Sinclair is a rough talking, whisky drinking soldier’s soldier, a hero of the desert campaign who rose to his position through the ranks. Colonel Barrow, an officer graduate of Oxford and Sandhurst, had a wretched war in Japanese prison camps. But he has come to take command of the Battalion he has long admired, the one that Jock Sinclair has served in since he was a boy. In the claustrophobic world of Campbell barracks, a conflict is inevitable between the two men and a tragedy unfolds with concentrated and ferocious power.
James Kennaway served in a Highland regiment himself, and his feeling for ‘tunes of glory, for the glamour and brutality of army life gives added authenticity and humour to this, his first and most famous novel. He died in a car crash at the tragically early age of forty.