Nigel Tranter

[Margaret]

Has anyone here read a lot of Nigel Tranter's novels about Scottish history? They used to be hard to get in the U.S., and I've only read one. It was years ago - I think it was the one about Macbeth. I'd be interested to know which novels are considered to be his best.

[Mara]

I've read the one about Glencoe some time ago. It was good. His style was more old fashioned storytelling. Sadly I've yet to catch up on other novels (and he published many) but I've seen them dead cheap in second hand book stores here.

[Misfit]

I read the Bruce Trilogy and enjoyed that, but I tried another MacBeth the King and bailed at around 50 pages. It was a bit dry, although I'll admit I was having a bad book day and started about three or four before I could find one to interest me.

[EC2]

My mother read just about every book of his going when we lived in Scotland. I've tried a few but can't get on with him. He sometimes writes in never ending sentences that are very clunky. I found him dry and musty and way off base with some of his historical details. A friend challenged me to read his Master of Grey series and change my mind. I didn't, but to be fair I will say that this was a better read than the others I'd tried. In places it had vague echoes of Dorothy Dunnett (stressing the 'vague.')

[Melisende]

I loved his "Macbeth" - there was also one about one of the early saints of Iona (forgotten the title) which was also quite good.

My local library has quite a few titles on the shelves - but as we have four branches spread far and wide - so are many of the books themselves. Meaning - there is not a full set of each "series" on the shelves of any one library - which is quite annoying when you like to grab them all for yourself!

[Margaret]

Was it Druid Sacrifice about St. Mungo's mother, Melisende? As a young teenager, I read a novel that made druids seem like really creepy charlatans - there was a scene in which one of them was explaining that everyone had a spot on his body where you could stick a needle in without feeling pain, and if you did this as a public display, you could impress people. For years, I've been wondering what book that could have been, and looking over the descriptions of Tranter's titles, I think that might have been the one. I guess you could call it skillful writing, to make a scene like that stick in my mind for so many decades, but even then I thought he was being quite unfair about the druids.

I did find Macbeth the King pretty dry. I was hoping one of his other novels might be better so I could give him another chance. Scottish history is so interesting, it deserves a writer who can really bring it alive.

[Melisende]

That's the one!

Thanks Margaret!

[Margaret]

I just found out that Nigel Tranter's Druid Sacrifice was not published until 1993, in which case it couldn't possibly be the novel I was remembering. This is quite mysterious - perhaps it was published in the 1950s or 1960s under a different title? Or else we are thinking of two different books?

[Melisende]

Maybe its was published with a new company in 1993 - otherwise there must be a very similar book covering a very similar subject.

[sweetpotatoboy]

I've wanted to like him but the only time I tried he completely failed to engage me and I gave up (which I rarely do).