In The Unrecovered, Richard Strachan weaves a haunting narrative steeped in gothic tradition, skillfully combining the eerie ambiance of a crumbling estate with the profound effects of war and trauma. Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century Scotland, the story unfurls within the foreboding walls of Gallondean Castle, where the spectral lingerings of the past intertwine with the lives of its present inhabitants. Strachan’s adept storytelling invites readers into a world where history, personal demons, and the supernatural collide, creating a tapestry rich in atmosphere and psychological depth. This review delves into the intricacies of Strachan’s debut novel, exploring its themes, characters, and the chilling yet thoughtful experience it offers.

The Unrecovered by Richard Strachan

A creepy old crumbling house held together by history and secrets? Its brooding lonely master hiding away from the world with only guilt and a sinister servant to keep him company? A family curse that reaches down through the centuries? A period setting in the shadow of a world war?

Tick to all of these. The Unrecovered sits firmly in gothic territory, but familiar genre beats do not always make for a cliched tale, not if the author knows what they are doing.

And Richard Strachan knows what he is doing.

The Edinburgh-based author may not be a familiar name, but he has plenty of writing experience to draw on, notching up and impressive tally of tales for the Warhammer universe.

Not that this effective tale of quiet menace and the true-life horrors of the Great War, back in the days before we had to give them numbers, seems to have much on common with the violent playground of the RPG universe. Which just goes to demonstrate how much Strachan has learned from his literary apprenticeship.

The lonely lord of the manor is Jacob Beresford, too ill to fight in the war himself, but living under the shadow of death due to his failing lungs rather than any enemy action.

However, Jacob is no sickly aristocrat. He owes his occupancy of the Usher-esque Gallondean Castle not to any Norman ancestry, but to his father’s success as undertaker to the colonial British in far-off India.

But that does not mean he will escape Gallondean’s resident spectre, a legend linked to a patricidal knight who carried his murdered father’s hands to the the Holy Land: when the laird of Gallondean dies, that death will be marked by the ghostly howling of a beast from the ominously named promontory of Hound Point.

If the family curse involving a supernatural hound remains anyone of a book from a fellow Scottish author, well, that hasn’t escaped Strachan’s attention either, with one character pointing to the similarities with the most famous Sherlock Holmes story of them all.

‘It sounds like The Hound of the Baskervilles to me,’ she said doubtfully.

Jacob smiled at that. ‘Conan Doyle is an Edinburgh man, isn’t he? Who’s to say one legend didn’t inform the other.’

The other speaker is Esther, serving the war effort in her own way as a volunteer nurse at nearby Roddinglaw, whose status as a widow stands in contrast with her lively young colleagues. Among their broken and wounded charges, men who carry their traumas with them to this peaceful Lothian coast, is Daniel, a veteran and victim of a more recent conflict in the Holy Land and one with his own unknowing connection to Gallondean and its dark history.

Together these three will begin a chain of events which leads to some sort of resolution of Gallondean’s story.

This is no jump-scare horror. If the supernatural impinges on the life of its characters, it is through the uneasy rather than the overt.

Strachan makes good use of Scottish landscape and history, and yes, the weather, to layer on different kinds of chills, adding a light folk horror vibe to the gothic elements.

The Unrecovered sits comfortably within the gothic tradition, but never feels out-dated or a mere pastiche. Strachan’s voice is too distinct for that, and his feel for his characters too sure, while subjects like war-trauma, colonialism and even the nature of the soul give it a satisfyingly thoughtful heft.

The ending, with its dreamlike atmosphere, takes the reader into a very different space from the historically grounded background, but Strachan still manages a satisfying, if not entirely happy solution.

Will Strachan dabble with the supernatural for his next novel? If so, I’ll be more than happy to go along for the ride.

Calum Macleod, Gingernuts of Horror website