Peter Cheyney (1896–1951)

This was a surprisingly good book. I had read one of Cheyney's later "Dark" series, which was pretty atmospheric and not badly written, but it didn't grab me. In this book, however, the first of his Slim Callaghan series, he turns a not too original story of nephews who'll do anything to get their hands on their uncle's money into a fascinating psychological game as Callaghan, in the tradition of Hammett's Continental Op in Red Harvest, plays everyone off against one another to arrive at the show more eventual truth. This isn't nearly as dark or violent as Hammett's book, but it is quite enjoyable to watch Callaghan as he proceeds with his plan, improvising as necessary. He is not one of literature's most likable characters, but his cleverness and style grow on you, until you have to admire him. His relationship with Scotland Yard is also refreshing. Cheyney keeps the complicated plot together quite well, and doesn't demand full time suspension of disbelief by his reader for it all to work out. I'll definitely read the next book in the series. show less

[Cross-posted to Knite Writes]

Plot

Claire Randall and her husband, Frank, are on their second honeymoon to the Scottish highlands in the wake of World War 2. Having been apart for eight years, Claire as a nurse and Frank in army intelligence, they want to rekindle their relationship before Frank begins working at Oxford. So they vacation in a small town far out in the Highlands, Inverness, where Frank researches his family genealogy and Claire learns botany.

Unfortunately, one morning, Claire show more ventures up to an old circle of stones, like Stone Henge, outside the town where they’re staying, and in a moment of magical weirdness, gets transported by the stones back in time to the 1740s.

She’s immediately assaulted by Frank’s ancestor, “Black Jack” Randall, Captain of Dragoons, and then kidnapped by a bunch of kilt-wearing Highlanders she eventually learns are part of the Mackenzie clan. Claire is taken with them to Castle Leoch, home of the clan’s leader, Colum Mackenzie, where she is kept as a sorta-kinda prisoner, suspected of being an English spy. Claire quickly establishes herself as the castle’s physician, using her future medicine knowledge to heal wounds and cure illnesses.

Then she’s taken out with Dougal Mackenzie, Colum’s brother, and a group of others, to collect the rents for the Mackenzie lands. During this trip, she’s taken to meet with Randall by Dougal and tries to con her way back to Inverness, but Randall refuses to buy her story and hits her. After this, Dougal realizes he has to protect Claire from Randall — the only way to do that is to make Claire marry Jamie Fraser.

Jamie is a young man of mysterious origins that Claire has a budding relationship with. She reluctantly marries him and learns more about his history: he was the heir to a property held by his family, but then Randall came along one day and sexually assaulted his sister, Jenny. Jamie tried to defend her and Randall had him whipped for it so badly he almost died. Jamie then escaped from Randall’s custody and in the fray, a soldier was killed (but not by Jamie). Now Jamie has a price on his head and is wanted for a murder he didn’t commit.

After the wedding, Claire tries to escape back to Inverness and the stone circle, but she gets caught by Randall’s men and has to be rescued by Jamie. Claire ends up getting stuck with the Mackenzie group for some time longer, learns a bit about fighting, and has lots and lots of sex with Jamie. Lots and lots and lots. And lots and lots and lots.

Eventually, Claire ends up back at Leoch, back at her job. But one day, while Jamie is away, Claire thinks she’s being summoned by a local friend of hers, a woman rumored to be a “witch.” Geillis Duncan. However, not long after Claire arrives, she’s ambushed by the townsfolk, and both her and Geillis are accused of being witches. A few days later, they’re tried for witchcraft, and just before things get really bad, Jamie shows up and rescues Claire. Geillis is left behind to die, and is later said to be burned at the stake.

After that nightmare, Jamie takes Claire to Lallybrock, his home, where she meets his sister Jenny, her husband, and her son. Jenny is pregnant with her second child, and after a bunch of arguing, a lot of it concerning Randall and the events that led to Jamie’s whipping, the siblings reconcile, and Jamie and Claire stay at Lallybrock temporarily as laid and lady.

Not long after Jenny’s child is born though, Jamie gets snatched up by the redcoats and taken to a Wentworth prison. Claire enlists the help of Murtagh, one of the Mackenzie people, and together, with a few others, they try to break Jamie out of prison. Unfortunately, Randall got a hold of Jamie first, and he also captures Claire during the breakout attempt. Jamie bargains his life for Claire’s, and Claire has to regroup, get some additional allies, and try to break Jamie out of prison again before Randall kills him or he’s hanged.

Thankfully, they do rescue him, but not before Randall tortures him horribly. Claire has to try and piece her poor husband back together, and then their allies smuggle Claire and Jamie out of the country, to France, to a monastery where Jamie stayed previously. Jamie has to recover emotionally and physically from his torture, while Claire finally comes to terms with her time traveling and leaving Frank behind in the future.

Claire and Jamie are happy together.

The end.

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My Take

I’m of two minds about this book. On the one hand, there are some pretty good adventure moments in this book, and overall, the plot is pretty good. There’s some battle and drama and all sorts of shenanigans, like witchcraft trials. There’s some politics and neat historical stuff. There are a wealth of interesting characters.

However, all that being said, this book has some pretty big issues. The biggest one being that it needs a HUGE trigger warning. There’s so much sexual assault in this book, and it’s used so many times as a plot device to put characters in danger, that it honestly got boring about halfway through. Rape. Got boring. Because it was used too often. Not to mention the amount of casual sexual harassment and blatant sexism…Good God, I know this book takes place in the past, but there HAVE to be things that happened to women back then other than rape, rape, rape, rape, rape.

I also have huge problems with the way the antagonist used rape and how it culminates in the plot’s climax in bit of character development that is seriously problematic. I’m not going to be any more specific than that, because I don’t like to go to much into socio-politics in my book reviews. But I really could have done without the antagonist being cast the way he was in the last fifth or so of the book. It made me really uncomfortable.

In fact, a lot of scenes in this book made me really uncomfortable, especially the ones where the consent seemed to be lacking in scenes that were played off like consensual sex after the fact. Jamie and Claire’s relationship had a lot of bumps that struck me as…well, for lack of a better word, wrong. Really wrong. There were moments where Jamie’s characterization seemed contradictory to what we were previously told (in terrible ways) and places where Claire’s strong-willed female protagonist personality fell apart for no reason. And places where…

Anyway, while the plot of this book wasn’t terrible overall, and some of the characters were pretty cool, I really couldn’t get past the issues I just mentioned, and they pretty much shut down this series for me.

I don’t think I’m going to continue this one. Sorry.

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Is It Worth Reading?

If you’re sensitive to things like rape in fiction, no. Stay far away. If you’re not and you like fairly accurate historical fiction, maybe?

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Rating

2.5/5 show less

Never trust a dame. Surely a seasoned criminal should know that much! Nicely atmospheric very short story.

My Review from 2009:
The first time I read the book I really didn't like it. But when I read all the amazing reviews from everyone, I thought that I needed to give the book another chance, So I did read it again, or more accurately I bought the audio-book read by Dvina Porter, and it might be her voice or something, but I liked the book a little more. and I really enjoyed the part when Claire was accused to be a witch and Jamie came to her rescue. But all in all I still didn't like it. show more Sorry.

This is a time traveling story I thought about adding it ages ago but I always felt unsure. I know it's very famous and well-loved but I got to say I'm one of the few people who didn't like it at all.

When I first read about this book and read all the great reviews, I got the whole set, and now I regret it. I spent a year or two trying hard to finish the first book and I couldn't, finally I downloaded an audio-book and got it over with, but I couldn't force myself to continue. So the books are there sitting unread on my shelf.

There are so many reasons I disliked the book strongly. I loved how it began, it felt so promising. But I didn't like Claire at all. Her relationship with Jamie felt wrong as well. Beside the age difference, he was so aggressive with her, and in more than one scene he hurts her physically and sexually.

I felt the story/book should have been shorter, so many unnecessary paragraphs about herbs and landscapes! All that made me lose touch with the actual story!

I'm sorry but I truly don't recommend this series. I'm sure others highly recommend it and call one of the best romances of our time. show less