A Kind of Grief

I read A Small Death in the Great Glen, the first book by A. D. Scott in the Joanne Ross/ Highland Gazette series, set in 1950's Scotland. This is the sixth book in the series and I felt like it was a real spoiler for earlier books, although I will still go back and read them. Kirkus introduces us to the protagonist in the book this way, "Joanne Ross still suffers from low self-esteem caused by a bullying father, an abusive former husband, and a near-death experience at the hands of a colleague. Now married to John McAllister, editor of the Highland Gazette, she’s given up her job, but not her curiosity...In 1959, life in the Scottish Highlands remains old-fashioned in many ways, so Joanne’s not entirely surprised to read about a woman tried and acquitted for witchcraft." Joanne is intrigued and makes her way to the woman's remote cottage in a beautiful glen with hopes of interviewing her. The woman, Alice Ramsey, refuses but invites Joanne in for a cup of tea and they make a connection. When Joanne inadvertently reveals information about Alice to an unscrupulous journalist, Alice cuts off all communication. When Alice is later found dead, apparently a suicide, Joanne is not only filled with grief but with guilt and begins to dig into the story in spite of her husband's concerns that it may be dangerous. When representatives of Britain's secret service also threaten her and her husband, she is not deterred. Kirkus concludes, "Scott ...skillfully uses the beauty of the Highlands as a backdrop for an entrancing mystery whose characters repeatedly and pleasurably upstage its action." Publishers Weekly agrees and notes, "Scott ably integrates the period’s Cold War intrigues into a story about the power of small communities both to sustain and to sabotage lives."