A richly written story about family and rivalries. Original, very enjoyable and highly recommended.

The Island Hinba Might Be A Nice Place to Visit, But I Wouldn't Want to Live There.........

This may be the best written village cozy, ever. From the blurb I thought I might get something like Kosinski's "Being There", which is a brutally funny tale about a simple, sheltered gardener who is thrust into the wide, confusing world. Or maybe a "Candide" style satire, or parody. But no. This is an unusual, but stylishly written, mix of village politics, quirky characters, doomed family history, multi-generational intra and inter family conflict, romance, revenge, and mystery.

The basic frame is simple enough. Two families, the Buchanans and the MacLeods, have dominated the remote island of Hinba since it was first settled. The Buchanans control the post and the MacLeods control the only pub. There are three generations of Buchanan men who make a Faulkner southern Gothic family look like a picnic. Our hero is Fergus, the youngest Buchanan. His fiance is the Macleod girl, but at least we never head very deeply into Romeo and Juliet territory. Rather, one day it is discovered that a cursing stone that is of historical importance to the island is being auctioned off in Glasgow. It must have been stolen! It must be recovered! Fergus is sent to get it! And so the innocent is sent to the mainland on a quest, and to have his eyes opened.

Here's the thing. The book starts wonderfully. The description of Hinba is superb, and the sense of isolation and claustrophobia is nicely rendered. Fergus seems a bit mild and odd to be our hero, but surely he will grow and develop. We get some dream sequences that add a magical realism feel, but the reader can take them or leave them. Many other characters are introduced in order to fill out the village, and the book. Of special note are Fergus's mother, (who is an off-islander who's stuck in Hinba by love and duty), and Fergus's sister, (who has escaped). They are deep, multi-level, sympathetic, and powerful characters. They are the central characters in the book as far as I was concerned, and command every page on which they appear.

The mother and sister matter because, as the story progresses, Fergus just slowly fades away. So does his fiancee, who was never really there much anyway. The other islanders become caricatures with weird secrets and connections that make them too artfully fictional to be interesting. A lot of the twists and secrets are clever, even if they don't hold up under close scrutiny. Multiple revenges that were hinted at during the story all come home to roost, but these revenge dishes are so old and cold that they seem more curious than dramatic.

But that's all quibbling. As I said this is a village secrets cozy first of all, and on that score it is fine, and well and delicately crafted. (Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)