About the Book
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.
Format: Hardcover (170 pages) Publisher: Polygon
Publication date: 2nd October 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime
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My Review
Benbecula, part of the Darkland Tales series, is based on the true story of a gruesome triple murder carried out in July 1857 on a small island in the Outer Hebrides. The author fills in the gaps in the available documentary evidence about the case to explore the events leading up to the murder.
Our narrator is Malcom MacPhee, the elder brother of Angus, the man responsible for the murder who was committed to the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison following his trial. It’s many years after the murder and Malcolm is living alone in the family home. He lives in a state of squalor, rarely bathing or venturing outside. His days are spent reflecting on his role in past events, especially the increasingly erratic behaviour of Angus, and pondering on his own mental state. Perhaps it’s true, he thinks, his family is ‘a poisoned lineage’.
Shunned by most of the villagers, Malcom’s only visitors are the local priest and a Mrs MacLeod who, seemingly of her own volition, turns up periodically to clean the house, force him to bathe and cut his hair; the latter he finds strangely erotic.
As he looks back on the past, Malcolm paints a picture of a very strange family who scrape a meagre living from tending a small strip of land (a ‘rig’) and collecting kelp from the shoreline. The most, possibly only, sensible person in the household in his sister Marion but the island has nothing to offer her except years more of the same backbreaking mundane tasks. Malcolm’s father is mostly inebriated and his mother spends her days obsessively tending the fire, sitting in front of it with her legs splayed.
Uncontrollable sexual urges and a capacity for violence lurk just under the surface. In the case of Angus these emerge from time to time in manic episodes. Angus’s violent outbursts and strange behaviour are an increasing burden on the family. They cannot afford to have him confined to an institution so they must be constantly vigilant. In practice this task falls to Malcom and Marion.
But how much can we trust Malcolm’s account of events? After all, we learn Malcolm shares some of the same violent and sexual impulses as Angus. For example, he interprets a cat tormenting a half-dead mouse as an entertainment put on for his benefit. And although he manages to control – just – most of his impulses, instead acting them out in his imagination, there is one very chilling act he carries out in reality. Through these and Malcom’s own insights into his unstable mind, the author provides just enough ambiguity to leave us wondering if there’s more to events than meets the eye.
This is not a book in which the crime itself dominates. In fact, the description of the murders doesn’t come until late in the book. Instead it’s much more an exploration of notions of hereditary insanity and attitudes towards mental illness prevalent at the time. The afterword provides details of source documents but also of the cruelty endured by Angus during his long incarceration. If this all sounds pretty depressing, rest assured there are moments of absurdity and dark humour.
In three words: Unsettling, sinister, atmospheric
Try something similar: A Granite Silence by Nina Allan
About the Author
Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author of five novels: the Booker-shortlisted His Bloody Project, which has been published in over twenty languages; the Booker-longlisted Case Study (named as one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2022); and the Georges Gorski trilogy, comprising The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, The Accident on the A35 and A Case of Matricide. Graeme was born in Kilmarnock and now lives in Glasgow.
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