Safe Return Doubtful

This series continues to go from strength to strength.

He wondered if he really needed his axe. Surely the Christians were unlikely to put up a fight? He had a stabbing knife. The axe seemed like extra weight. Still, it looked good and it scared people. He decided to keep it with him, just in case. At least it was a nice day for it: light breeze, lambs playing in the fields. You didn’t want to be splitting heads in the rain. Grimur’s palms had only just healed from the shaft blisters he got during the slave chase in Thurso. And no midges. All things considered, this was a good day for a massacre.

On the Inner Hebridean island of Iona in the year 825 Abbot Blathmac is brutally slain on the steps of his monastery refusing to give away the secret resting place of the bones of St Columba.
The following morning the raiding Viking ship departs after their murderous visit but they leave behind a drunken and hungover Grimur. Unable to swim and with no boats he is trapped.

As with the other three Darkland Tales this is rooted in the history of the isle, and provides a hugely entertaining and thrilling read. To tell such an outlandish tale requires great skill of the pen, and Greig has that in spades, getting the tone just right with sharp and short sentences, occasional hilarity, strong drink and bloody murder. Behind it all the magnificent wild backdrop of the island is ever-present. He steers clear of imitation and stamps his own mark firmly. For Greig, a playwright, this is actually his first novel.

Next to the Darkland Tales party is Val McDermid, for whom the pressure is on, as the rest have been so wonderful, with her take on Lady Macbeth. I can hardly wait..

My GoodReads score 5 / 5