Howl of the Banshee: A dark tale of smuggling and piracy in the remote Scottish Isles

The “Isles on the Edge of the Sea,” so named by the Norse, form an Atlantic barrier along the western shore of Scotland. These remote islands of the Hebrides are a continuation of the mountains of the Western Highlands reaching far out to sea. For the most part they are barren projections, covered with machair, peat, rock and the vestiges of thousands of years of habitation. One of these projections, Beinn Dornie, a sister mountain of Beinn Dhubh, Black Mountain, on Harris, forms the island of Dorney about two miles west of the larger Isle of Harris. It is late winter, a miserably wet, cold, and windy time when even the warm peat fires fail to take the damp out of the stone dwellings. The only savior is the Dorney single malt made at the island’s ancient distillery. Marjorie Collins joins forces with childhood heartthrob, Patrick Hayes, now an Anglican priest, in a bizarre struggle with smugglers, pirates, ghosts and surreptitiously with Lucifer himself. Lucifer appears to have emerged from a grotesque painting by a demented artist, and both of Marjorie's parents are murdered while chasing Lucifer to the island of Dorney. What would attract the devil to this howling, storm-swept speck in the North Atlantic? Patrick and Marjorie find themselves in a race to uncover the evil of the Devil's Lair in time to save the islanders from death and destruction.

John Edward Radcliffe, is a Wisconsin guild storyteller who both writes and tells stories based on his travels to remote places throughout the world. John was brought up on the South Shore of Massachusetts so he developed a love of the sea. His hobbies include traveling, mountain hiking and viticulture. His Scottish Isles family background and his romance with the sea made these islands his favorite story hunting grounds. Sixteen of his short stories are published in his book, Storms of the Scottish Isles: Dark tales of creatures and beings on the remote islands of the North Atlantic.