His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

July 12, 2018

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Born 1967, in Kilmarnock, Scotland. Education: Attended Glasgow University; St. Andrews University, M.Litt. Addresses: Home: Glasgow, Scotland.

AWARDS:

Scottish Book Trust New Writer's Award, 2013; Man Booker shortlist, 2016, for His Bloody Project.

WRITINGS:

• The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau,  2014 (Inspector Gorski, #1)
• His Bloody Project,  2015.

A triple murder in a remote northwestern farming community in 1869 leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. There’s no question that Macrae is guilty, but the police and courts must uncover what drove him to murder the local village constable and his two children.

• Accident on the A35, 2017 (Inspector Gorski, #2)

Graeme Macrae Burnet worked for several years in television before becoming a writer, and he told a Spark Web site interviewer: "I try to treat it as a kind of nine to five-ish sort of thing and if I'm at the stage of producing a first draft I aim to write a thousand words or so a day. But some days are more productive than others."

…

Burnet's second novel, His Bloody Project, is presented as the memoir of a murderer, and it is meant to be read as such. The historical crime tale is set in the late 1800s, when Roderick Macrae is arrested for a brutal triple murder. Roddy's memoir reveals and ensures his guilt, and it becomes a widely studied text as lawyers and psychologists attempt to understand the mind of a killer. Discussing the novel on the Creative Scotland Web site, Burnet commented: "What's often the hardest thing to research and the most important to get right, was the real minutia of how people lived then. The small details of what they ate, what they wore--the real day to day intricacies." The author also noted: "Ultimately the key thing for me to get right was Roddy's prison narrative which is the real centre of the book. Writing a historical novel using the first person presents a challenge in itself as you have to really commit to the voice of your narrator."

Read-alikes from NoveList.

Burial rites by Hannah Kent

Reason: Despite very different locales (Bloody Project is set in Scotland, Burial Rites in Iceland), both are similarly atmospheric character-driven historical novels in which an individual's trial for murder reveals the biases and societal problems of isolated 19th-century rural communities. -- Kim Burton

The unquiet grave  by Sharyn McCrumb

Reason: Both are character-driven novels about 19th-century murders: his Bloody Project is set in Scotland, The Unquiet Grave takes place in post-Civil War West Virginia; each vividly evokes a strong sense of place, and raises murky questions of guilt and innocence. -- Kim Burton

Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue

Reason: Both are compelling, character-driven historical novels about young protagonists placed on trial for murder. Each explores how class conflicts and societal oppression influences their fate. While His Bloody Project is gritty and compelling, Slammerkin is more spare and reflective. -- Kim Burton

         See what I have done  by Sarah Schmidt Reason: These compelling historical thrillers generate suspense through unreliable narrators and multiple perspectives. In the wake of brutal murders, family members of the accused offer eyewitness testimony -- contradicting one another's accounts as well as the suspect's own version of events. -- Gillian Speace