Summary and Reviews of Beneath the Abbey Wall by A. Scott

Beneath the Abbey Wall by A. D. Scott

Beneath the Abbey Wall

by A. D. Scott
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Paperback:
  • Nov 2012, 352 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

As a decade of change comes to a close, murder hits close to home in a small Scottish town...

On a dark, damp Sunday evening, a man taking a shortcut home sees a hand reaching out in supplication from a bundle of sacks. In an instant he knows something terrifying has happened.

On a dark, damp Sunday evening, a man taking a shortcut home sees a hand reaching out in supplication from a bundle of sacks. In an instant he knows something terrifying has happened.

In the Highlands in the late 1950s, much of the local newspaper's success was due to Mrs. Smart, the no-nonsense office manager who kept everything and everyone in line. Her murder leaves her colleagues in shock and the Highland Gazette office in chaos. Joanne Ross, a budding reporter and shamefully separated mother, assumes Mrs. Smart's duties, but an intriguing stranger provides a distraction not only from the job and the investigation but from everything Joanne believes in.

Beneath the Abbey Wall brilliantly evokes a place still torn between the safety of the past and the uncertainty of the future, when rock 'n' roll and television invaded homes, and a change in attitudes still came slowly for many. As the staff of the Highland Gazette probes the crime, they uncover secrets deeply rooted in the past, and their friend's murder becomes the perfect fodder for strife and division in the town and between her colleagues.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

A. D. Scott weaves charged emotion into Beneath the Abbey Wall, a well-paced novel that bridges the gap between British “gentleman detective” mysteries – which include characters such as Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse, and Adam Dagliesh, among others, and which often entail ingenious executions of a crime – and hardboiled police procedurals that suggest bleak views of humanity...continued

Full Review Members Only (420 words)

(Reviewed by Karen Rigby).

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Scottish Gypsies/Travellers

One of the plot details in Beneath the Abbey Wall involves a family of Travellers whose histories twine with the murder victim's – Jimmy McPhee, and his mother Jenny McPhee, a highly regarded storyteller.

Scottish Travellers at the famous Aikey Brae Fair, Aberdeenshire, c.1906In Scotland, the Traveller population is referred to by the government as Scottish Gypsies/Travellers (distinct from Irish Travellers), though the names members use to refer to themselves varies by region. Travellers is more common in the Highlands, while Gypsies is used in the Lowlands and Border areas, with some regarding Gypsies as derogatory, preferring Romas instead. (For more on the Roma people in Britain, view the Beyond the Book for An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear.) Scotland also includes New Travellers, ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Beneath the Abbey Wall, try these:

  • The Blackhouse jacket

    The Blackhouse

    by Peter May

    Published 2014

    About this book

    More by this author

    From acclaimed author and television dramatist Peter May comes the first book in the Lewis Trilogy - a riveting mystery series set on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, a formidable and forbidding world where tradition rules and people adhere to ancient ways of life.

  • Death of a Dreamer jacket

    Death of a Dreamer

    by M.C. Beaton

    Published 2007

    About this book

    More by this author

    Newcomers usually don't stay long in remove Lockdubh, Scotland, but artist Effie Garrard settles in and apart from being a dreamer and a little odd, seems to be fine. Then she's found dead, an apparent suicide, but police constable Hamish Macbeth feels in his bones it is murder - but is he too distracted by his own personal affairs to see ...


More books by A. Scott
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Before Dorothy
by Hazel Gaynor
Before Oz, Aunt Em leaves Chicago for Kansas in a powerful tale of courage, change, and new beginnings by Hazel Gaynor.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Angelica
    by Molly Beer

    A women-centric view of revolution through the life of Angelica Schuyler Church, Alexander Hamilton's influential sister-in-law.

  • Book Jacket

    The Whyte Python World Tour
    by Travis Kennedy

    Rikki Thunder, drummer for '80s metal band Whyte Python, is on the verge of fame, love—and a spy mission he didn’t expect.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original
    by Nell Stevens

    In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.

Who Said...

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

E H L the B

and be entered to win..