Man Booker Prize Finalist. LA Times Book Prize Finalist. New York
Times Editor's Choice. American Booksellers Association National Indie
Bestseller! Named on "Best Book" lists 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.
