Alexander Seaton Books
Is the man simply drunk or does his tottering gait suggest something more sinister? When he collapses in front of the two sisters on that dark, wet night, the women guess, rightly, that he's been poisoned. So begins this gripping tale set in Scotland in the 1620s. The body of the victim is found in the house of Alexander Seaton, a fallen minister whose clandestine love affair has left him disgraced. He sets out to solve the crime, embarking on a journey where he encounters a witch hunt, extreme religious prejudice, cruelty, and the darkness in men's souls. At the same time, it is a personal quest that leads Seaton to rediscover his faith in God and his belief in himself.
Second historical thriller in the Alexander Seaton series sweeps the hero back to his roots in Ulster, and a family living under a curse and riven with long-held secrets It is 1628, Charles 1 is on the throne, and the British Crown is finally taking control of Ulster. Returning to his rooms one night, Alexander Seaton is shocked to find a stranger standing there - a man who could be his double. His name is Sean O'Neill, and he carries a plea for help from Maeve O'Neill, forbidding matriarch of Alexander's mother's family in Ireland. All those who bear their blood have been placed under a poet's curse: one by one they are going to die. Only Alexander is immune, his O'Neill heritage a secret from all but his closest family. Alexander travels to Ulster, to find himself at the heart of a family divided by secrets and bitter resentments. As he seeks out the author of the curse, he becomes increasingly embroiled in the conflict until - confronted with murder within his own family - his liberty and, finally, his life, are at stake.
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. It is only when a second, apparently unrelated murder comes to light that Seaton begins to piece together the connections between a young weaver, a consignment of books, and events in a college in the Low Countries in order to unmask the perpetrator of the years'-old deception that led to the two deaths.
The fourth book in the highly acclaimed Alexander Seaton series. 1635: 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. The figure in the shadows has come for him; he can hide from his past no longer. Shona MacLean has a PhD in history from Aberdeen University, specialising in 16th and 17th-century Scottish history. She lives in Banff, Scotland, with her husband and four children.