His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

What a terrific book! One of my top nine reads of 2020.

There is much literary game-playing in Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project: a confession, newspaper excerpts, medical reports, a travelogue, witness statements, footnotes, and a preface from the compiler - all related to the circumstances around three brutal murders committed by 17-year-old Roderick Macrae in Culduie, Scotland, 1869.

Roderick’s slow-burning account of his bloody crimes is humble and eloquent, logical and dispassionate - attributes which cast doubt on the authenticity and provenance of his statement. This is a book about the presentation and manipulation of evidence, the root causes of criminal behaviour, the development of criminal studies, and what it means to act out of character. It’s also a book about our appetite for dreadful acts, the glamour of murderers, and the entertainment we take in the judicial spectacle.

Be warned: you enter this book as a reader, but are quickly recast as judge amid the persuasive, contradictory statements. The shock moment is so softly played, so understated, it left me winded.

Borrowing the words of James Philby reporting on these brutal murders, this is “excellent entertainment”.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016. Burnet’s writing is smooth, deft, and darkly-humorous; I can’t wait to read his first novel The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2014) and its sequel The Accident on the A35 (2017).

Finally: Carmina Smoke - what a name!

WHAT TO READ NEXT

I’ve read 58 books so far this year, and His Bloody Project is among the most enjoyable alongside:

How to Write Like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen and Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth

More from Graeme Macrae Burnet:

The Accident on the A35 is a sort of anti-detective novel. There are no chases or pistol shots; the palate here is muted. There’s a lot of sherry and quiet moments in corner shadows. Burnet evokes the literary landscapes of Georges Simenon, Franz Kafka, and Fyodor Dostoevsky: it’s always raining and the good guy’s on a losing streak…

Can’t wait to read his latest novel Case Study (2021)