Man Booker Prize Finalist.
LA Times
Book Prize Finalist.
New York Times
Editor’s Choice. American Booksellers Association National Indie Bestseller! Named on “Best Book” lists by
Newsweek
,
NPR
The Guardian
The Telegraph
, and
The Sunday Times
!
In the smash hit historical thriller that the
New York Times Book Review
calls “thought provoking fiction,” a brutal triple murder in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869 leads to the arrest of seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae.
There is no question that Macrae committed this terrible act. What would lead such a shy and intelligent boy down this bloody path? And will he hang for his crime?
Presented as a collection of documents discovered by the author,
His Bloody Project
opens with a series of police statements taken from the villagers of Culdie, Ross-shire. They offer conflicting impressions of the accused; one interviewee recalls Macrae as a gentle and quiet child, while another details him as evil and wicked. Chief among the papers is Roderick Macrae’s own memoirs where he outlines the series of events leading up to the murder in eloquent and affectless prose. There follow medical reports, psychological evaluations, a courtroom transcript from the trial, and other documents that throw both Macrae’s motive and his sanity into question.
Graeme Macrae Burnet’s multilayered narrative—centered around an unreliable narrator—will keep the reader guessing to the very end.
is a deeply imagined crime novel that is both thrilling and luridly entertaining from an exceptional new voice.