The Unforgiven Dead

Constable Angus MacNeil must embrace his ancient gift to stop a series of ritualistic murders before more lives are claimed.

You could have saved her.

Sure as the tide against his Highland shores, the refrain beats into Constable Angus ‘Dubh’ MacNeil’s mind. For years it has haunted him, accompanied by the faces of those he could not save—the Burned Man, the Strangled Woman, the Drowned Boy. All witnesses to a secret he cannot share and a gift he now refuses to embrace.

You could have saved her. The refrain drives Angus to the seashore at dawn, where a girl lies on the unblemished sand. She wears a green cloak and cradles a corps creadha, a Highland voodoo doll. She has suffered a ritualistic, three-fold death—her head bludgeoned, her throat cut, and symbolically drowned.

It is Faye Chichester, daughter of an American billionaire whose mission to reintroduce wolves to the Highlands has embroiled the village of Glenruig. But even as the media and police swarm the area, that refrain—you could have saved her—echoes in all Angus’s thoughts. For he carries a burden, a blessing, a curse, a secret—dà-shealladh, the second sight of Gaelic lore.

Gills MacMurdo, noted folklorist, academic, and Angus’s oldest friend, confirms what the dà-shealladh is warning. Just as Faye’s death was three-fold, so must the murder victims fulfill the ancient pattern. More will die, unless Angus does what he must—close his eyes and see.

Fulton Ross is a writer and journalist from the Scottish Highlands. A graduate in Scottish literature and history from Glasgow University, he has worked on national newspapers for more than a decade. Inspired by Gaelic folk tales, The Unforgiven Dead is his debut novel. Set amidst the brooding landscape of the West Highlands, the novel is envisaged as the first in a series featuring Constable Angus ‘Dubh’ McNeil. Fulton now lives in Northern Ireland with his wife and three children.