Queen Macbeth
“Though this is far from the modern crime fiction she’s known for, McDermid weaves Queen Macbeth from the same understanding of longings for safety, justice, and yes, love.”
Before crime fiction adopted the terms “Scottish noir” and “tartan noir,” Val McDermid’s insightful and cleverly twisted murder investigations were revealing the dark sides of cities in Britain, stretching from her own Scottish roots to the gritty criminality of assorted locations. A master of psychological thrillers, she’s positioned both professional and amateur detectives as people with heart and mind that can both be gravely injured when evil collides with them.
Sinking into McDermid’s new adventure, Queen Macbeth, is best done with trust in this extraordinary author, because the slim book (131 pages) demands entry into the 10th century “north of Hadrian’s wall,” and a radical revision of Shakespeare’s most familiar plot and characters. McDermid opens with a frank exposition of her own collision with the known history of the real Macbeth and his lady, whose actual name was Gruoch. And the early pages seem at first like something incapable of framing murder and suspense in a modern fashion, for they reveal the lives of crafty allied women behind the protection of warring tribal leaders.
Yet there’s murder to come, and harsh risk, and a remarkable and resilient romance as well—and the inner presence of Queen Macbeth demands swift intelligent planning, as well as choices on who to trust and how to cross a dangerous landscape. The women who accompany Gruoch are practically sisters to her, each one mysterious and mystical in her own way, and powerful. Take Eithne, who raises and gathers all varieties of herbs wherever she lands. Necessity requires that Eithne share a special flask of mead she’d been saving for some celebration, to instead be part of the women’s plot to make it out of a sudden imprisonment: Aife’s keeping watch, while Ligach counters Eithne’s reluctance sharply: “If we survive tonight, that will be worth celebrating.”
It’s Gruoch, later to be Queen Macbeth, who needs to assess the forces in which the women can be caught up and destroyed and who takes leadership of her loyal posse. She values each set of skills, including those of the herbalist, admitting, “Her skills in diagnosis and treatment have paid our way, more even than the endowment of the monastery land Macbeth and I made years ago.”
The generosity of the Macbeths will bear fruit in the hasty and perilous journey that erupts. McDermid offers a leader whose humanity feels striking and deeply familiar. Gruoch’s swift escape is far from casual: “I can’t make sense of myself. I have killed a man and must flee to who knows where, who knows what. I once had a husband, a son, a kingdom. All gone now. I’m like the monastery boat. Unmoored, cast on a strange shore, adrift with grief. How do I live now?”
Though this is far from the modern crime fiction she’s known for, McDermid weaves Queen Macbeth from the same understanding of longings for safety, justice, and yes, love. Give it your trust, walk with the first few scenes, and the book may become fiercely difficult to put down. There are hints that this may be part of a set of upcoming “dark tales” from Britain’s “Queen of Crime.” If the others follow the example of this slim volume, they will expose more than a new series of dangerous adventures—they will give readers a new sense of McDermid’s soul and values. What more could a crime novelist agree to give?