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Summary: Debut of the wonderful Walter Scott historical mysteries
Review: Walter Scott expects to have a lot of free time to hone his craft as a novelist because he anticipates a very quiet time as the newly appointed sheriff of Edinburgh. However, instead of kicking off his shoes and picking up his plume, Walter soon finds a mix of corpses, skeletons, and body parts along the shore of the nearby loch. Initially writing it off as the work of some grisly grave robbers, Walter changes his mind when he realizes that Gypsy women are being abducted. The townsfolk are uninterested in the disappearances because these are only Gypsies. However, that changes when Midge Margaret tells the sheriff about a mystery coach that seems to appear just before the women vanish. Walter puts his writings aside to investigate what is happening to destroy the peace of his home city. However, Walter is unaware that he is about to dive into the circle of the foulest of black magic. Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is renowned for her enchanting fantasy novels (see THE GODMOTHER series, etc.). Her latest novel, THE LADY IN THE LOCH, is a wonderful historical mystery, starring Walter Scott at the beginning stages of his career as a novelist. Though there are liberties taken with the lead protagonist and his time period, the Scott persona rings genuine and the support cast with their deep Scottish brogues adds to the period piece. A fabulous tale that will remind readers of Heck's Twain mysteries and hopefully have as many sequels. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Gorgeous, intriguing and scintillating! Keeps getting better
Review: I don't know how E.A. Scarborough does it, I've been reading her books for years and this lady never grows stale or repetious! The Lady in the Loch is a wonderful mystery, a wonderful fantasy and a wonderful historic fiction rolled up into one incredibly clever book, set in Scotland, with a mood and a scenery so real you can smell and feel it, it's a gripping story... my husband doesn't like fantasy, but loves mysteries and I really think this is the book that will convert him!!! Thank you Ms Scarborough! For the hours of enjoyment and another book I can re-read into tatters and discover something new every time! And thank you for another well researched tale that will get me to the library to learn more about your incredibly interesting locales and historical figures!!!
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Summary: Pleasant, but somewhat predictable
Review: I've enjoyed Scarborough's previous fantasy works. They're always quite readable and did a fine job portraying ordinary people put into extraordinary circumstances. However, I found this novella particularly predictable. It's not just that the identity of the villain is handed to the reader in the first chapters of the book (no, it doesn't pretend to be a mystery novel), but also all the plot twists and complications are very straightforward and usually loudly heralded before Scarborough brings the reader to their advent. On the positive side, the depictions of Edinburgh are vivid and plentiful, and will strike a chord with anyone who has trod the Royal Mile or gazed on the Salisbury Crags. And, as ever, Scarborough provides likable, lively characters with wit.
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Summary: What's Not To Love?
Review: Imaginative plot, an atmosphere so vivid you can smell it, clever humor, and characters that leave you anxious for a sequel. As with all of Ms. Scarborough's books, open the cover and you fall into another universe...whether you love mysteries or science fiction or historical fiction, you'll be glad you tried The Lady in the Loch!
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Summary: Another winner from a top-notch author!
Review: One of the things that fascinates me most about Ms. Scarborough's books -- I've read quite a few of them -- is that they are all so different, yet all so wonderful! No matter what setting or time period or style of she writes, her deft touch, thorough research, compassion for the underdog in whatever social setting, and sense of humor come through. Because I am very interested in Scotland, and especially in the time period of this book and before, when magic still was acknowledged in the "real" world, this book really grabbed me. Scarborough's multilayered writing creates a lush, tangible world for the reader to lose himself in -- it was hard to drag myself away from Scott and Scotland to come back to my time and place! In addition to a crackin' good mystery, the information about the daily life was delightful -- and I really like Walter as a person. I hope the sequel(S) will be out soon!
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Summary: Madness, ghosts and kidnappers
Review: Sir Walter Scott is a real person from history whose own story and writings make fascinating reading. In Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's book "The Lady In the Loch" she shows you a side of Scott when he was first starting out in a policital appointment, and before he was sucessful in his writing. In this book though, there is the hint of supernatural behind the ordinary. Granted, the book starts out with the victim of a murder announcing the name of her killer, and you have body snatchers who cant wait for someone to die, a person driven mad by obsession and love, and a city in the midst of growth and change. All this, and more. I found this book to be an entertaining read because it dealt with a transitional period, when the belief in magic as an everyday occurance was being replaced with science and fact. The Travellers as a people are normally the ones picked as the evil-doers, but in this book are the victims, because they don't fit in with the cityfolk and no one cares what happens to a few of them. Its not a book about good verses evil, but a modern fable of what happens when someone takes notice of evil being done and does something about it, because that is what people should do. I would like to see more of Scarborough's Scott and his world, before all the magic gets lost.
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Summary: Pleasant, but somewhat predictable
Review: THE LADY IN THE LOCH, by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, takes us to early nineteenth century Edinburgh, where new construction and medical science battle with superstition and magic. Sir Walter Scott is the newly appointed sheriff of the city, a position more of esteem than actually responsibility. His vivid imagination leads him to believe the tales of the clever, vivacious gypsy, Midge Margret. She informs him of the disappearances of two other gypsy girls and of her fear that her "ain folk" are being murdered so their bodies could be sold to the University of Edinburgh medical school for research. What neither realizes is that something even darker than they could ever imagine is taking place, and that they will both be drawn into the middle of the horrifying nightmare. Scarborough's novel blends history, folklore, and fantasy with touches of Frankenstein thrown in for good measure. The brogue can make reading slow going in places, especially when the dialect of the gypsies is represented. (It is easier to take in all of the phrases at once than to stop and guess at the meaning of each of the words.) The identity of the madman becomes evident fairly early in the book. But the author has drawn such vivid characters that concern and interest in them drive the reader rapidly to the conclusion. Also, the historically factual information about Edinburgh is fascinating. As Midge Margret's people are forced to take shelter in the city from the bitterly cold winter, she is appalled at the stench emanating from the town. Slops were tossed into the streets every night at 10:00 p.m.; overcrowding and lack of proper drainage meant that Edinburgh could be smelled by visitors eight miles away, prompting Midge Margret to exclaim at one point: "And they ca' us dirty."
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Summary: An Interesting, Disturbing Peek into Historic Edinburgh
Review: THE LADY IN THE LOCH, by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, takes us to early nineteenth century Edinburgh, where new construction and medical science battle with superstition and magic. Sir Walter Scott is the newly appointed sheriff of the city, a position more of esteem than actually responsibility. His vivid imagination leads him to believe the tales of the clever, vivacious gypsy, Midge Margret. She informs him of the disappearances of two other gypsy girls and of her fear that her "ain folk" are being murdered so their bodies could be sold to the University of Edinburgh medical school for research. What neither realizes is that something even darker than they could ever imagine is taking place, and that they will both be drawn into the middle of the horrifying nightmare. Scarborough's novel blends history, folklore, and fantasy with touches of Frankenstein thrown in for good measure. The brogue can make reading slow going in places, especially when the dialect of the gypsies is represented. (It is easier to take in all of the phrases at once than to stop and guess at the meaning of each of the words.) The identity of the madman becomes evident fairly early in the book. But the author has drawn such vivid characters that concern and interest in them drive the reader rapidly to the conclusion. Also, the historically factual information about Edinburgh is fascinating. As Midge Margret's people are forced to take shelter in the city from the bitterly cold winter, she is appalled at the stench emanating from the town. Slops were tossed into the streets every night at 10:00 p.m.; overcrowding and lack of proper drainage meant that Edinburgh could be smelled by visitors eight miles away, prompting Midge Margret to exclaim at one point: "And they ca' us dirty."
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Summary: Murder mystery, horror story, historical novel
Review: This book is all of these things. One thing, though, the dialogue is written in dialect. While if I had known this, I probably wouldn't have gotten the book, I actually enjoyed the Scottish flavor. It's not so unitelligable that you lose the plot. Most of it is easy enough to understand, especially after being read out loud. Even if the dialogue can't be understood, the writing is so good, that the point is driven across anyway. After all that, what is left is a look into a different society; a murder mystery where young gypsy girls are going missing, and a horror story where the dead rise to sccuse their killers, and a crazed doctor tries to assemble parts to bring his lover back to life. A definite must read.
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Summary: Lady in the Loch and Walter Scott
Review: This was a book I could hardly wait to write. I've been fascinated by Sir Walter Scott's life and by Edinburgh in particular for many years, and writing this book finally gave me the chance to do more research. It was intended as a fantasy set in an "alternate Edinburgh" rather than the real one, so instead of being in the Scottish age of enlightenment, this turn of the 18th to 19th century Scotland is one in which the law has blended science and the old Scottish magical beliefs about death, murder, and forensics. There were still remnants of these in Walter Scott's times. Although Scott, as an educated gentleman lawyer whose grandfather was a physician, naturally publicly accepted the scientific explanations, from his own prose I believe he really preferred the magical explanations and procedures so, taking a page from my predecessor Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy series, which I dearly loved, and many of the folktales of Auld Reekie, I decided to change Scott's beat from Selkirk, where he was a real life sheriff, to Edinburgh, a city in which he enjoyed great influence and which benefitted mightily from his imagination and vision, not to mention his PR skills when the king came to call. I haven't had too many complaints about the dialect. I drew most of it from Scott's collection THE MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDERS, and from his work and other works I collected in Scotland and from other Scottish books. My linguist friend in Edinburgh said that for a non-Scot it was darn good and my Scottish friend in London says he only caught a couple of Brigadoonisms (musta been typos) and that--for a non-Scot it was very close. I just couldn't hear the voices in my head without the dialect and I couldn't write them without it either but I did try to soften up the edges of the passages in Scots for the American reader. I am a great lover of mysteries and ghost stories so it was a lot of fun to get to write one too. I hope everyone will enjoy reading it as well. And yes, I am planning another at the turn of the century from the 20th to the 21st.
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