Vagabonds
3 primary works
Book 10
Elspeth Baillie, a young Scottish actress, is chosen by enigmatic impresario Lord Coak for an acting career on the Island of Barbados. At first feted by the colonial gentry, her life in the Caribbean does not go according to plan. Elspeth is obliged to take on a temporary and ambiguous role in the closed world of Coak's remote sugar plantation. Dolan's plot is full of unexpected twists as Elspeth becomes ever more the prisoner of a venture whose founding principle is white supremacy. Captain Shaw, the factor, sets about building a New Caledonia whose reality for Elspeth and her new compatriots is a sense of timelessness and loss. Nature, ideology and the drive to maximise profit conspire to endanger the invented community. Elspeth is left trying to make sense of her own life and youthful ambitions among a shipwrecked people dreaming of home. Linguistically rich and narratively hypnotic, Dolan's novel asks what makes a nation. Bloodlines? Language? History? Or some ideal for the future? Elspeth's hopes for a new world, full of drama and passion, collide with the all too real drama and elusive loves of colonial life.
Book 17
In Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park, the bodies of two youths lie with bullet holes in their heads. Hungover, nicotine-starved and ill-attired, procurator fiscal Maddy Shannon attends the scene, unaware that this grim morning is about to spiral out of control. The corpses have been carefully disfigured, perhaps signs of gangland revenge or, worse, ritual slayings. Motives and suspects are hard to find. It soon becomes clear that this disturbing case will hold a mirror to the government, the church and society at large. As the gruesome complexities of the investigation multiply, the fragmented story of Maddy's immigrant ancestors - her grandfather Nono and his Great Adventure - emerges as a counterpoint to brutality and corruption. As she struggles to prove her worth against the darkest side of human nature, we discover the history and heartbreak that created this strong-willed woman. This first crime novel by versatile Scottish author Chris Dolan is written with wit and empathy, and he is unafraid to explore literary themes, making Potter's Field a work concerned as much with home and heritage as it is with violence and intrigue.
It is a novel about Glasgow, told in an intimate voice with a profound knowledge of an exuberant, flawed city.
It is a novel about Glasgow, told in an intimate voice with a profound knowledge of an exuberant, flawed city.
Book 20
Captain Robert Haldane wakes up in a strange room, in an old house, surrounded by a beautiful but ramshackle orchard, miles from anywhere. The last thing he can remember is his helicopter being shot down over enemy territory. It appears he is in a safe house, cared for by an elderly holy man and his niece. But how did Haldane get there, and who are these people really? With time he suspects there is someone else in the house. The soldier tracks her down: Aliyyah, a beautiful young veiled woman. Is she, too, being kept against her will, or even her knowledge? And is there really a curse on this family?Aliyyah is a modern Arabian tale, set in an unnamed war-torn country. It is a Romeo and Juliet story, but one for an age where scientific materialism is crossing bloody swords with religion. What divides these two lovers is not the war outside, or the imminent arrival of Haldane's troops, but how they interpret the world.