Alexander Seaton Series by S. G. MacLean
Alexander Seaton #1
Seaton 01 - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton
S. G. MacLean
SynopsisIs the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister? When he collapses, vomiting, over the two whores who find him on that dark wet night, they guess rightly that he's been murdered by poisoning. So begins this gripping tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s. The body of the victim, the apothecary's nephew, is found in Alexander Seaton's school house. Seaton is a school master by default, and a persona non-grata in the town - a disgraced would-be minister whose love affair with a local aristocrat's daughter left him disgraced and deprived of his vocation. He has few friends, so when one of them is accused of the murder, he sets out to solve the crime, embarking on a journey that will uncover witchcraft, cruelty, prejudice and the darkness in men's souls.It is also a personal quest that leads Alexander to the rediscovery of his faith in God as well as his belief in himself. Among her many strengths, Shona MacLean is brilliant at evoking period and place. You feel you are in those cold, dark, northern rooms, eavesdropping on her characters. You are totally involved in the rich, convincing world she has re-created.
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Alexander Seaton #2
Seaton 02 - A Game of Sorrows
S. G. MacLean
It is 1628, and Alexander Seaton’s happily settled life as a university teacher in Aberdeen is shattered by the arrival in town of a stranger who looks like his twin and who carries a plea for help from Alexander’s dead mother’s family in Ireland. The family has been placed under a poet’s curse, threatening death to various members. Elements of the curse have already begun to play out. Reluctantly answering the call, Alexander leaves his home and his beloved Sarah and travels to Ulster, to find himself among a family torn apart by secrets and long-buried resentments. In the course of seeking out the author of the curse, Alexander becomes deeply entangled in a conflict that involves fugitive priests, displaced poets, rebellious plotters and agents of the king. Confronted by murder within his family, he finds the lines between superstition and faith, duty and loyalty are becoming increasingly blurred, while his Scottish homeland grows ever more remote.
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Alexander Seaton #3
Seaton 03 - Crucible of Secrets
S. G. MacLean
It is Midsummer, 1631. While Alexander Seaton and his fellow masters enjoy the holiday with their students, Robert Sim, librarian of Marischal College, is murdered in a dark alleyway in town. While the university and town authorities investigate the murder, Seaton is asked by the college principal to look into Sim's private life. In the course of an investigation in which his personal feelings threaten to cloud his judgement and endanger his young marriage to Sarah, he discovers a side to the librarian he could never have guessed at.
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Alexander Seaton #4
Seaton 04 - The Devil's Recruit
S. G. MacLean
1635, and Europe is in the grip of the brutal territorial and religious struggle of the Thirty Years' War. Fear stalks the town of Aberdeen as a ship recruiting for the wars lies at anchor in the river mouth. A sinister figure watches from the shadows as apprehension grows and culminates in the disappearance of the son of a Highland chief - a student of Alexander Seaton. When the frozen body of a young woman is found in the garden of a prominent citizen, Alexander becomes more deeply embroiled. He realises that the figure in the shadows is known to him and has come for him. He can hide from his past no longer.
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