The Shetland Night Killings (A Handful of Ash)
Liveaboard skipper Cass Lynch is busy with student life at the marine college in Shetland’s ancient capital of Scalloway – until she finds a dead girl, whose hand is smeared with peat ash. Is this part of some strange ritual linking back to the witches once burned in Scalloway? What was the horned figure seen carrying the body? Rumours begin to spread, encouraged by local Hallowe’en traditions. Then there’s a second murder ...
Praise for The Shetland Night Killings (A Handful of Ash)
“I enjoyed this book enormously... the mystery itself held me enthralled. The suspects are numerous, and kept me guessing. When the murderer is revealed it was satisfying to see that the clues were all there for the amateur sleuth, provided you are a student of human nature. ... Highly recommended”
— Lizzie Hayes, Mystery People e-zine
This photograph shows Scalloway, with the castle in the centre, the fisheries college at the upper left side, with the marina beside it, and the background of Gallows Hill.
Spanish Closs, where Cass found Annette’s body.
One of the lanes leading up to the Castle. The garden on the right is the one reputed to have two dead babies buried in it.
Scalloway Museum, with its history of Scalloway, and the story of the Shetland Bus.
The haunted Smiddy, taken from Burns Beach. The ducking stane was just in front of it.
This house, Dinapore, was the HQ of the Shetland Bus.
The memorial to the men of the Shetland Bus, built with stones from all the places associated with them.
The slip where the men of the Shetland Bus mended their boats.
Inside the great hall of Scalloway Castle, facing the wall Cass has to climb to get away from a murderer.
Author Comment
From the summer setting of The Trowie Mound Murders, I moved on to Hallowe’en, and the chance to show what a lot of fun country bairns make for themselves up here. Naturally Hallowe’en suggested witches, and as Cass was now going to college in Scalloway, the last place in Scotland where witches were burned, the plot practically grew by itself. Please don’t try climbing Scalloway Castle – Historic Scotland wouldn’t like it. Like Hitchcock, I occasionally put myself in my books, and here I’m the teacher organising the games, as I did for many years, with my husband at the keyboard.