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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my 2008 Top Reads - Wonderful!,
By
This review is from: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (Paperback)
First Sentence: The younger of the two shires rifled the man's pockets with expert fingers.
Young Alexander Seaton, disallowed from becoming a minister, is now a teacher in his town of Banff, Scotland. He sees a man who staggers and falls on the street during a dark, wet night, but doesn't stop to help. With morning comes the revelation that the man was the apprentice to the town apothecary and nephew to the town proctor. He had also been poisoned and found dead in Alexander's classroom. Alexander's friend, Charles Thom, who has also been living with the apothecary, is arrested for the murder. It falls to Alexander to prove his friend's innocence. There was so much to this book, it's hard to know where to begin. Though it's not necessary indicative of excellent writing, I thought it interesting that Ms. MacLean is the niece to author Alistair MacLean (Guns of Navarone). Both MacLeans excel at bringing the reader into the story. From there, they are vastly different. Ms. McLean makes real life in 1626 Scotland; the time of Charles I, after the dissolution and separation from Rome, but during a time of Knox and Melville Presbyterianism, religious prejudice and the rise of witch hunts. It's a story of murder, ambition, fear and bigotry, but also of strength, goodness and that we never truly know how we are perceived by others. Alexander is a wonderful protagonist who becomes very real as his story unfolds throughout the story. A cast of characters would have been helpful, in the beginning, but all the characters are fully dimensional so it quickly became a non-issue. I did appreciate the short glossary at the end. The story is dense and rich with detail and emotion, compassion and suspense. There was never a point where I wasn't compelled to turn the page and read more. It's a powerfully evocative book with wonderful historic detail that never overshadows an engrossing story. I should love for this to be the first of a series. Even if it's not, I shall definitely read whatever Ms. MacLean writes next.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 Really Enjoyable To Read But the Aftertaste Was Not As Sweet,
By Barb Mechalke (in the lovely Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (Paperback)
There was much to enjoy about this mystery, I especially liked the main character. Alexander Seaton is a man ashamed of his misdeeds and still harshly judged by his disgrace. In the tight knit Scottish community where he is a school master he has very few friends. The one person he counts closest to him, Charles Thom, has been arrested and charged with murder. The corpse of the apothecary's apprentice, Patrick Davidson, was found in a classroom in Alexander's house. Thom's romantic feelings for the apothecary's daughter and her interest in Davidson are thought to be the motivation for the crime. Alexander and his friend Dr James Jaffray vow to prove Charles Thom's innocence. I enjoyed the details of the tight-knit community of Banff, Scotland, the relationships that connect the people, the politics and religious views that shape those relationships and the harsh system of justice that is employed. MacLean did an excellent job of creating interesting and realistic characters I particularly liked the growth and change that Alexander experiences during and after his search to uncover the truth about Patrick Davidson's murder. I also liked the way the author slowly revealed the cause of Seaton's fall from grace. There is a spiritual thread woven into this story, I did not find it not overly religious or offensive, rather it was logical and fit within the context of the story. I would give the religious thread the atheist stamp of approval and wager that not many readers would be offended by it. The reason I found the reading experience more enjoyable than my reflection on it after I was done is that the mystery itself had two elements that I didn't find realistic or convincing and both of them were integral to the murder. One is revealed in the beginning of the story and the other at the end. I continued to wonder about the first as I was reading; it nagged at me but didn't spoil my enjoyment of all the wonderful things the author threaded through her story. The element that occurred at the end of the story was revealed during the dénouement not the climax so again it didn't detract from the unveiling of the guilty party or even of the motivation for the murder itself. However, the more I thought about that second element the more disappointed I was by it. Overall I found this to be an enjoyable and entertaining story with compelling characters and interesting period details. I think fans of historical fiction would enjoy this novel and not be bothered at all or maybe even notice the issues that I had a problem with.
4.0 out of 5 stars
No Kiltfest here.,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (Paperback)
The Redemption of Alexander Seaton by Shona Maclean takes place thetime is 1626, the place Banff Scotland, no this isn't a kiltfest. There is not one `verra or d'ye ken." What you have here is a very well written mystery, set in a time which to me is the bleakest of all periods in western civilization. The Stuarts were not a popular dynasty, the protestant reformation was only a couple of generations old and Europe was in turmoil. A time of plague and witches and whispers of foreign plots.In the fishing village of Banff in north western Scotland, disgraced minister Alexander Seaton is working as a junior school master. When on a dark and stormy night a young apothecary's assistance is murdered and is found at Alexander Seaton's desk in the morning. Poison is obviously the cause, but who would have killed the likable young man? Alexander feels guilty because he passed the young man by, thinking him only drunk and he was cold and wet and a little drunk himself, and he didn't need any more dealings with the town's bailiff, who already looked at the schoolmaster with suspicion. But how did he get into the school room? Also could his good friend Charles Thom be the murderer. Hoping to help his friend, he and the town doctor begin to look into the death of the apothecary's apprentice... Now I will say it took me a little time to get into this book, for me the beginning was slow and I had to refer back several times to get the characters straight. But soon I was immersed in the world of Banff and the secrets of the inhabitances in this insulated part of Scotland. I love to learn things, and there was a lot of new information, which sent me to Wikipedia. 3.75 stars. I have the second book in the series A Game of Sorrows... to be continued.
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