Interesting setting. Some problems with this first novel, but I’ll keep on because of the characters and setting. A bit convoluted; perhaps trying to do too much. Is it a mystery or social commentary. Need for balance. ( )

I’m lucky in that I don’t run across too many disappointing books very often. However, this was one. There were far too many characters, and though they were all well developed, there were just too many to keep track of at times. There were also too many side stories that kept the flow of the story from moving along. I don’t think I will be pursuing more from this series. ( )

I enjoyed this book so much that I brought the original back to Jon in Oregon and bought a version for my Kindle. ( )

Busy. If I had to pick one word to describe Scott's debut, it might be "busy." As in too much going on. As in trying to do too much. She gets top marks for an amazing number of interesting characters and for their development, as well as for her ability to evoke a solid sense of Scotland in the 1950s. The main plot is extremely interesting, but an abundance of secondary and even tertiary story lines cause the pacing of the book to suffer and creates an overall inconsistency in the final result. In addition to the main murder story, there are at least two subplots involving the main female protagonist and another involving her editor at the local paper. And there are others, as well. There is a wedding to be planned and executed, told in great detail. There is Scotland's version of a gypsy group and the way that it is treated by the xenophobic locals. There is a weekly newspaper to put out, with time and pages devoted to the details of getting that job done. And on an on. And while each story with its subset of characters is interesting in its own right, there is just too much of it, and it takes the story away from the main murder mystery too often and for excessive periods of time. Perhaps it would have been wiser to save a subplot or two for the second book in the series. I was left with the sense that the author was trying to accomplish too much. Sometimes less is more, and all that. ( )

It's 1950 in the western Highlands of Scotland. Little Jamie Fraser has gone missing on his way home from school and Joanne Ross's daughters, Annie and Wee Jean, were the last ones to see him alive: "We saw him," she [Wee Jean] explained, "me and Annie, we saw this great big black hoodie crow. He opens the door, all of a sudden like, an' he spreads out his wings . . . and he picks up Jamie in his wings and takes him . . . ." When Jamie is later found dead in the canal and the coroner determines the boy was "interfered with" and murdered, Joanne and her coworkers at the local newspaper wonder--Do the girls actaully know something, or is it just their imaginations trying to make sense out of the death of a friend?

"A Small Death in the Great Glen" is Scottish writer A. D. Scott's debut novel in what looks to be a very promising new series centered around a local newspaper in Inverness, Scotland during the 1950's when the scars of World War II were still red and raw. While the plot of the story turns on the murder of the young boy Jamie, the theme revolves around abuse--child abuse; spousal abuse; alcohol abuse; the abuse of power and position, both civic and religious--and the community's silent acceptance that enables such abuse to continue.

While there are some abrupt shifts between story lines that can be somewhat jarring, A Small Death in the Great Glen is packed with plots, personalities and all the drama of a close-knit community struggling to adjust to a post-war world. Yet the story never loses sight of the central plot and ties off all the seemingly loose threads neatly in the end. ( )