History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 9/10

• Accuracy: Meticulous on 1540s Scotland, from border raids to court politics, with real figures woven in convincingly.
• Readability: Demanding: allusive, packed with untranslated quotation and wit, and deliberately confusing in its opening chapters.
• Plot: Francis Crawford of Lymond, an outlawed nobleman accused of treason, returns to Scotland at the head of a gang of mercenaries, and nobody can tell whose side he is on.

In 1547, after Scotland’s defeat by the English at Pinkie, the country is divided, occupied in places and full of intrigue. Francis Crawford of Lymond, younger son of a noble family, has been branded a traitor. He returns secretly with a band of cutthroats, and his older brother, Lord Culter, sets out to hunt him down.

The opening chapters are famously bewildering. Lymond is brilliant, cruel, witty, unpredictable, and quotes poetry in half a dozen languages. Readers are given no help in understanding him. Many give up; those who persist are rewarded.

Dunnett’s plotting is extraordinary. Loyalties shift, schemes are layered inside schemes, and the reader’s view of Lymond is gradually overturned. The set pieces, including a duel between the two brothers and a climactic trial, are superb. So is the supporting cast, especially Christian Stewart, a blind young woman whose perception of Lymond is sharper than anyone’s.

The historical research is dense and accurate, though Dunnett wears it lightly, integrating politics, religion and daily life into the action.

The book’s difficulty is real. The style is ornate, the untranslated quotations can be irritating, and the characters’ constant wit can feel exhausting. The 9 reflects a remarkable first novel and the start of the six-volume Lymond Chronicles, one of the great achievements of historical fiction. It demands patience, but few books repay it so generously.