His Bloody Project
Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae (Man Booker Prize Finalist 2016)
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3.7 • 83 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Man Booker Prize Finalist, LA Times Book Prize Finalist, New York Times Editor’s Choice, and an American Booksellers Association National Indie Bestseller!
Named a Best Book of 2016 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. His Bloody Project is a deeply imagined crime novel that is both thrilling and luridly entertaining from an exceptional new voice.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Perfect for fans of Serial or Making a Murderer, this amazing thriller reimagines the true story of a triple killing in an isolated Scottish village in 1869. Graeme Macrae Burnet—a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize—weaves a psychological rabbit warren that’s mainly narrated by the murderer himself: 17-year-old outsider Roddy Macrae, who’s been writing a diary in his Inverness jail cell. We loved picking through the book’s frequent red herrings and false accounts, including witness statements of varying bias. The multiple narratives kept us guessing the killer's motives until the final page.
Customer Reviews
Great read
Very interesting presentation of a novel about real events. It presents and reads like a documentary but is a novel.
Interesting points of social and psychological factors of the times played out in the context of a trial. A modern lens applied to an almost 200 year old crime.
Fascinating and hard to put down.