Benbecula

'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.

'Dark, intense and utterly compelling' – Laura Wilson, The Guardian



Graeme Macrae Burnet is a Scottish writer. His first novel, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, earned him the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award in 2013, and his second novel, His Bloody Project, was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, and Case Study was longlisted in 2022.



'[an] intense psychological thriller'



'Dark, intense and utterly compelling'



'An elegant, eerie volume... Although ostensibly a fictionalisation of a real-life triple murder on the titular island, Benbecula is really a book about how precarious the idea of the self is'



'The novel's devilish appeal lies in the intoxicated and isolated Malcolm's narration from within the confines of his family's "skullhouse," ... The author once again proves his mastery of moody psychological thrillers'



'Graeme Macrae Burnet's recreation of a macabre incident in 19th-century Hebridean history is unrelentingly disturbing and utterly gripping'



'Benbecula is a powerful novel, more concise than his Booker-shortlisted His Bloody Project which was set in Applecross on Scotland's west coast. Both books share, however, a sense of how landscape and isolation sometimes affect people in small communities'



'A gripping meditation on madness and identity, on what it is to know oneself, and to know anything at all... Psychological thrillers have rarely been so poetically dark and enthralling. A remarkable work of psychological intrigue and dark wit'



'tells the true story of a long-ago murder, but it is the slow and subtle reveal of the narrator's troubled mind that lingers long after the horror of the brutal crime begins to fade. Modern Scottish literary fiction at its finest'



'Burnet goes beyond simplistic ideas of good and evil to explore the nature of madness, crime and punishment'



'a consummate slice of alternative true crime'



'A sometimes hard-to-read testament to the banality of evil, and a heartfelt cry of despair that is well worth a day of your time'



'Benbecula... moves along with tremendous speed, and with an inexorable momentum... a brilliant and shocking novel, like the bright blade of a tuskar cutting into the dark flesh of the peatbank'



'deliciously dark'



'Some crime writers are successful at creating fully-formed living, breathing characters; others are more adept at playing games with the reader: to an almost unique degree, Macrae Burnet excels at both'



'A deep dive into a mind teetering on the brink ... The author has taken very little licence with the facts, but has brought a masterful touch to his retelling of them ... an unsettling atmosphere evoking both inner darkness and the faint presence of the strange and inexplicable'



'A literary trickster writing at the peak of his powers'



'Graeme Macrae Burnet skilfully maintains the tension as Malcolm slowly unravels and the true depth of the family's crisis is revealed'



'Burnet is a skilful writer who interweaves notions of doubt, justice and guilt into this slim book'



'Psychologically perceptive and darkly atmospheric . . . A profound and ambitious work. His best yet'



'It is without doubt a fine achievement and one which will remain with the reader well after finishing the novel'



'Part psychological thriller, part socio-legal critique, Benbecula is peak Burnet. It's a blast to read but its real genius lies between the lines'



'Burnet is emerging as Scotland's latest genius of propulsive psychological thriller writing, following in the famous footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson'



'The story is made all the more haunting by the stoic simplicity of the prose. The writing is compelling and this is an unusual and affecting read'



'Precisely executed and tightly written, a compelling reconstruction of an unspeakable crime'