The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle, T.L. Huchu
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language: English
country: Zimbabwe
year: 2023
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: Edinburgh Nights, #3
dates read: 29.9.23-29.9.23
T.L. Huchu’s The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle is the third book in his Edinburgh Nights series; it is, first and foremost, a scathing picture of Scottish politics, sometimes in ways that are fair and sometimes in ways that rest uncomfortably on old stereotypes. (the good news is England comes off just as poorly, so there’s that, at least.)
as the title indicates, the book is set on the Isle of Skye, where the elite of the Scottish magical community have gathered for their annual conference — but someone steals a precious ancient manuscript from the keynote speaker, an Ethiopian magician-priest. this is a major diplomatic incident, but most people are curiously unbothered by this — they’re more interested in the wild internal politicking that this triggers; also, on top of that, the highest representative of England’s magical community is also present and happily stirring up trouble. Ropa is tasked with locating the stolen manuscript.
there’s a lot to unpack here:
- the portrayal of the Scottish political elite as, fundamentally, navel-gazing and self-absorbed — these people will, by and large, happily let the world burn (or let orphans starve outside their gates) in order to secure a little more power for themselves.
- Scotland as a whole is portrayed pretty negatively — while the book is sympathetic to the working class, they’re presented as peripheral to the character of the Scottish nation, which is fundamentally mercantile and capitalistic (something even the unapologetically mercenary Ropa finds increasingly distasteful).
- most importantly, the Scottish political elite are presented as so absorbed in their own petty dramas that they actively undermine their own status as autonomous (if not independent).
- the Gael characters are presented as a set of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stereotypes — obsessed with history and clan loyalties and willing to (again) create a potential diplomatic incident in order to relitigate (or outright re-fight) battles fought in the seventeenth century. we’re repeatedly told that “the rules are different here”, and the main manifestation of that difference is in the presentation of Islanders as connected with a more “primitive” or “traditional” legal and magical system.
- that said, the novel also inexplicably implies a continued ethnic divide between the (Gaelic) peasantry and the (Norse/Norse-Gaelic) aristocracy (i.e., Clan MacLeod), with the Norse presented as settler-conquerors who destroyed an older social and supernatural order by driving the fairies — who (we’re told) coexisted peacefully with the Gaels — out of Skye in order to secure their own rule. what.
- the English Sorcerer Royal is there specifically to stir up internal divisions within the Scottish magical community, to make grand speeches about the importance of The Union, and generally to lie and manipulate and just fuck everyone over.
these wild politics are…very messy.
the novel is a bit oddly paced, also, especially for what’s fundamentally a locked-room mystery. it’s good, overall, but it feels at times much more interested in exploring the density of its world-building (political and magical) than in pursuing the thief-murderer.
it’s an interesting book, and Ropa’s voice is still very engaging (even with the slightly awkward audiobook delivery), but it’s definitely the weakest of the series so far by a significant margin.
moods: dark, grimy, reflective, tense
webring >:-]
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