THE WEST UIST GATHERING AND LITERARY FESTIVAL

We on the island have always enjoyed the annual Gathering for the Games. This year Inspector Torquil McKinnon, known to everyone (on the right side of the law) as 'Piper' is competing for the Silver Quaich in the piping championships. He told our special correspondent that he is hoping to emulate his uncle, Lachlan McKinnon, who as everyone knows was the 1967 Supreme Champion of the Outer Isles. And our old friend PC Ewan McPhee will be competing in the wrestling and the highland hammer throwing, hoping to retain his titles in each.

But we are very pleased to be seeing the Literary Festival come to the island for the first time ever. They have them in London and a few other English towns. Wales has one in Hay-on-Wye, and even the lowland town of Wigtown has one. Now do not be getting me wrong here. These are all very fine places, but the West Uist Literary Festival is going to be the best of them all. We have a sparkling line up of local and national authors. We have Agnes Dunbar, the former head cook at Dunshiffin Castle who is going to be giving us an insight into what is really set before the laird when she talks about her new book GAME, FISH, STOVIES and WHISKY.

          Then we have our own Gaelic fisherman poet, Ranald Buchanan who will be reciting poems from his latest collection SONGS OF THE SELKIE.
         But pride of place on the literary bill is going to be Fiona Cullen, the Queen of Scottish Crime. As you all know she cut her literary teeth by assisting me as a cub reporter on the West Uist Chronicle, before she went on to greater things. She will be talking about her latest novel which will soon be hitting the bookshelves of all the major outlets across the land. She tells us that it has some pretty explosive stuff in it. It is entitled DEAD WRITERS TELL NO TALES.

Personally I can't wait to hear what it is about!

Calum Steele,
Editor


The scene is set. To find out more check out the novel

                        or in Large Print                 

Inspector McKinnon hunts down a serial killer. The mysterious drowning of Ranald Buchanan, an acclaimed Gaelic fisherman-poet, on the first night of the literary festival hardly sets the right tone for the celebrations. For one thing it rekindles age-old fears about the Selkie, the seal-man who claims his victims and drags them beneath the waves. Torquil McKinnon, recently promoted to the rank of inspector in the Hebridean constabulary, soon has his hands full. Not only has his old flame, crime writer Fiona Cullen, returned to the island for the festival, but also it appears there is a serial killer on the loose. And dead writers tell no tales...