Benbecula : Darkland Tales

Author: Macrae Burnet, Graeme

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 7 May 2026 by Birlinn General (Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Darkland Tales' series.

Paperback | 176 pages
196 x 132 x 17 | 170g

'It is dark now and my window onto the world is a small one. I do not know how much longer I will be here.'On 9 July 1857, Angus MacPhee, a labourer from Liniclate on the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt. At trial in Inverness he was found to be criminally insane and confined in the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison.

Some years later, Angus’s older brother Malcolm recounts the events leading up to the murders while trying to keep a grip on his own sanity. Malcolm is living in isolation, ostracised by the community and haunted by this gruesome episode in his past.

From Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project, comes a beguiling psychological novel set on a remote Scottish island. Based on a true story and drawing on the documentary evidence of the time, Burnet constructs a gripping narrative about madness, murder and the uncertain nature of the self.

Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical FictionLonglisted for the Highland Book PrizeLonglisted for the CWA Historical Dagger'Dark, intense and utterly compelling' – Laura Wilson, The Guardian