![]() ![]() ![]() CK McDonnell’s This Charming Man is again set within the dysfunctional newspaper “The Stranger Times”. ![]() This is more Horrible Histories than taking history seriously.Īt the same time, I read another second book in a series. It was a smart plan but colonization ain’t cheap… money flowed in fair enough, but soon as things started looking real, the auld enemy set about cockblocking… they’d raised a hefty sum equivalent to one-fifth of the nation’s wealth – a big middle finger to the wankers south of the border”. “If Scotland set up a free-trade zone there” – referring to Panama – “they could kick back and watch the dosh roll in while everyone else did the heavy lifting. You can add into that a degree of political posturing. Various plot lines are vying for attention: the sick teenager, a heist involving monies from the Act of Settlement, an astral voyager of dubious repute, a mysterious group called the Monks of the Misty Order and a final confrontation with a 17th century figure (I can’t under due diligence name the individual in question as they will be recognised by anyone who has read Stevenson, or for that matter, the Evening News reporting on desecrations). Too often these are info-dumps of a “did you know?” variety. I certainly plays on Scottish references, from James VI’s Daemonolgie to Aleister Crowley to the Darien Adventure and the foundation of the Royal Bank of Scotland (and its subsequent travails). ![]()
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