Queen Macbeth
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Shakespeare created the myth of the Macbeths as indefensible murderous conspirators. But now internationally bestselling author Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history
Britain’s reigning “Queen of Crime” (The Scotsman), Val McDermid has ensnared audiences worldwide for over thirty years with her thrilling and masterfully plotted crime oeuvre. A radical, rip-roaring counternarrative drawing on the historical record, Queen Macbeth delivers an illuminating portrait of Shakespeare’s most famous villain, and the treacherous pursuit of ambition that made her legendary.
A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a healer, a weaver, and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her – because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. As the net closes in, what unfurls is a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre, and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.
Immersive and utterly riveting, Queen Macbeth is an electric reimagining of one of Shakespeare’s most celebrated tragedies and reaffirms McDermid as one of the preeminent writers of our day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scottish crime writer McDermid (the Karen Pirie series) provides a middling origin story for Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, who was inspired by real-life medieval Scottish queen Gruoch. Following Macbeth's slaying of King Duncan in battle, rival armies rampage across the countryside. Meanwhile, Gruoch hides behind enemy lines with her three handmaidens. The women, aided by a soldier, drug a monk and frame him for murder before making their escape, which is cut short when they fall into the clutches of rival thane Macduff. As Gruoch draws upon her wits to save the lives of her loyalists, McDermid intercuts the action with flashbacks to Gruoch's first encounter with Macbeth, when she was the wife of a ruling chieftain and recognized in Macbeth her equal in treachery. McDermid hews close to the historical record, but the numb dialogue and melodramatic love affairs never threaten to touch Shakespeare's version of the story. As one of the handmaidens flatly observes, "It's not just the act that matters, it's the atmosphere." This falls short.
