Publisher's back page blurb
When Angus McLeod discovers that he is Angus the fifth, the last in a long line of McLeods and now the sole heir to a crofting tenancy in the Western Highlands of Scotland, he thinks that this might just be the opportunity he is looking for to escape from the frustrations of his city life.
The croft is located in the sporting estate of Fioneriska, owned by the aging Lord Muldaren who tends to leave estate affairs to his son Julian. Julian Muldaren is the Minister of Defence in the British government and it is common knowledge that he is involved in some dubious arms deals which are currently being investigated.
When Angus moves to Fioneriska for a trial period, what he finds, it is a place of magical beauty and an undercurrent of suspicion.
As a seasonally employed ghillie on the estate, he soon discovers that Julian Muldaren, despite his reputation for political skullduggery, has an endearing side to his character and a child-like enthusiasm for fishing. More slowly, however, he also becomes aware of a bitter and ruthless political struggle between Julian Muldaren and his political enemies. And then there is Muldaren’s wife - the gorgeous Petra. Angus builds friendships with his crofting neighbours, with Muldaren’s nephew Jason, with Elspeth the artist who also keeps hens, and with Cuan the dog, who isn’t actually a friend, but has a habit of eating Angus’ dinner.
But the focus of Angus’ concern is Adrian Hopkirk, Julian Muldaren’s minder. This action-man look-alike, trained by the SAS, and able to kill a man in more ways than Angus finds easy to imagine, is systematically searching the mountains and forests of the estate. And then there is the fact that visitors to the area have a tendency to die violently or to disappear. Angus suspects that these events may be connected with the helicopter which crashed near by, killing a number of intelligence officers and littering the hillsides of Fioneriska with classified documents.
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