This was a book club choice. I hadn’t read anything by Andrew Miller before and enjoy a well-written historical novel. It is set in the early 19th century. John Lacroix returns from the Peninsular Wars, sick and disturbed by what he has seen and, perhaps, what he has done. On the retreat to La Corunna, an atrocity took place in a Spanish village. This threatens cooperation between the British and the Spanish and the British authorities are determined that someone should pay the price for the actions of the British soldiers. That person is Lacroix. A British corporal and a Spaniard are dispatched to track him down. Lacroix doesn’t know this, but he does not wish to return to the wars just yet and so heads to the Scottish Islands. There he becomes involved with a free-thinking family, the Frends, but his pursuers draw ever nearer.

The plot is exciting and I think the book would have worked better for me as a straight thriller. The novel also seeks to ask questions about responsibility for actions and the extent to which past events shape present behaviour, but the characters were not sufficiently psychologically realised for this to be effective. In particular, I would have expected the interior life of Lacroix to be more fully explored. There were also a few elements that seemed to be added for more for historical colour than because they were important for plot, character or structure.