King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett is Lady Dunnett’s exhaustively researched historical novel that postulates that Earl Thorfinn of Orkney and the historical Macbeth were one and the same man. Dunnett reached this conclusion after several years of study of every book she could find on the period (1000 – 1060) as well as source documents found throughout Europe. The novel took six years to complete, and tells the story of the Viking leader of Orkney, Earl Thorfinn, and his eventual rise to power as King of Alba (Scotland). It is also the love story of Thorfinn and his wife Groa.

The story tells of Thorfinn’s consolidation of the Orkney Islands and the northern-most part of the mainland of Scotland, which he inherited from his father, and his eventual conquest of most of the rest of current Scotland. Incredible detail of the history of all of Northern Europe is provided throughout the novel. It’s like reading a dwell-written history of the late Dark Ages and includes some of the early history of William the Conqueror, who is still only the Duke of Normandy when this story is set.

The characters in this book are full of the life you would expect from a Dunnett character. I felt as if I could have reached out and touched any one of them. Perhaps that could be counted as a flaw, since I don’t believe we would have much in common with a person living at that time in Europe, since they were probably very different from us psychologically. However, one feels a great deal of sympathy with the characters and this made the book very easy to read. Thorfinn and Groa are the main characters, but all of the secondary characters are great, too. It’s a little hard to keep track of all of them at first, but I found it easier as the book went along and I got to know them better.

King Hereafter was written after Dunnett completed the Lymond Chronicles and her plotting skills are well advanced here. She uses a lot of the same elements from her other historical novels, to include the betrayals and extreme loyalties of dear friends, a growing love between the two main characters, well choreographed action sequences, and breath-taking scenic descriptions. It contains all the nuanced delight in language of Dunnett’s other books.

Overall, this book is Dunnett’s masterpiece. I savored every word and hope to have time to read it again someday. I like the Lymond Chronicles best of all of Dunnett’s books, but this is an amazing work of scholarship disguised as a great novel. ( )

A very odd book. I was enjoying it very much at the beginning, and quite liked Thorfinn, barbaric but clever pagan viking that he was, when suddenly he turned into Francis Crawford of Lymond. Oh well.I wonder, is Dunnett only capable of writing that sort of hypercompetant, ultra-energetic Great Man character, or is it only that she thinks that is the only type of character worth writing about? They make me tired, and I never quite believe in them.But Thorfinn wasn't quite Crawford, for which I was grateful. First, he was wrong occasionally. Several times, in the end, when everything started to go bad. And I liked his stubborn paganness, while at the same time slightly despising his political using of christianity.And Groa. Why on earth, if he loved her, did he neglect, avoid, and insult her for five years running? I must be missing something.I liked Thorkel. In some ways he was more heroic than Thorfinn, more to my liking. A little too devoted, like . . . A kickable dog.Were death rates really so high, amongst early-medieval royalty? A wonder anyone wanted to become king, if it meant lisence for all other claimants to burn your house around you, marry your wife on your deathbed and slaughter your family as potential rivals who would do the same in their turn.

Few works of historical fiction that I've read over the years so completely captures the spirit of an age as this work. While a work of fiction, the author works in a great deal of the detail that we know from historical accounts regarding the real MacBeth. She has a good eye too, for capturing warfare of the period including MacBeth's Norman mercenaries. Her MacBeth is a very human figure. Well worth reading. ( )

This is a fictionalised account of Macbeth, but don't let that stop you. ( )